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XTbe inniversits of Cbicago 

FOUNDED BY JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER 



ON THE INTERPRETATION OF 

EMPEDOCLES tk 



A DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS 

AND LITERATURE IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE 

OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 

(department of greek) 



hVu , CLARA ELIZABETH , MILLERd) S/Tkjl* 



CHICAGO 

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRBSS 

1908 



I IwU iiOOiCS !!»;:• 

CI 15 tayb I 



J 



Copyright 1908 By 
The University of Chicago 



Published October 1908 



Composed and Printed By 

The University of Chicago Press 

Chicago, Illinois, U. S. A. 












B 



PREFATORY NOTE 

In its original form this study included a series of notes on the frag- 
ments of Empedocles, discussing the meaning of doubtful passages, and 
examining in detail the important interpretations hitherto proposed. In 
order to reduce the whole to reasonable compass these notes have been 
omitted, though the wide range of divergent interpretations was interesting 
and highly instructive. 

To the courtesy of Mr. Fred C. Conybeare I owe the valuable hints 
recorded on p. 62, toward the interpretation of a vexed passage of Philo. 

To Professor Paul Shorey I wish gratefully to acknowledge my indebted- 
ness both for the subject of this study and for many helpful criticisms and 
suggestions. 



To the following well-known works reference will be made simply by 
the name of the author. If other works by the same writer are cited, the 
titles will be given. 

REFERENCES 

Beare: Greek Theories of Elementary Cognition. 

Burnet: Early Greek Philosophy. 

Diels: Vorsokratiker. (Diels's numbering of the fragments of the 

pre-Socratics is followed, where not otherwise specified.) 

Gomperz : Griechische Denker. 

Karsten: Empedoclis Agrigentini Carm. Reliquiae. 

Mullach: Philosophorum Graecorum Fragmenta. 

Rohde: Psyche. 

Stein: Empedoclis Agrigentini Fragmenta. 

Tannery: Pour Vhistoire de la science hellene. 

Windelband : Geschichte der alien Philosophic 

Zeller: Geschichte der griechischen Philosophic (Vol. I, when not other- 

wise specified.) 
The references to the Aristotelian commentators cite the pages of the Berlin 

edition, unless otherwise specified. 



INTRODUCTION 

In all departments of historical and philological criticism of the present 
day, the influence of the evolutionary point of view is apparent in the intense 
interest shown in the beginnings of human effort. Attention is now focused, 
not upon the great periods of fulfilment, but upon the times of groping and 
of early promise. In Greek philosophy this tendency has centered atten- 
tion upon the pre-Socratics, in whom the fundamental conceptions of 
thought are seen in the process of making. But man has cared as little as 
does Nature to preserve his first bungling attempts to bring order out of 
chaos, and only fragments and scattered notices of this group of thinkers 
remain to us. Marvelous constructive work has been done in the attempt 
to restore what was lost. The language of the fragments that have come 
down to us has been criticized, corrected, and emended, until Diels's 
V orsokratiker presents us with a remarkably satisfactory text. The 
secondary authorities have been searched for references and allusions, 
until the student has ready access to almost all the information we possess 
upon early philosophy. Criticism has undertaken further the task of 
piecing together this material, the task not only of making a single whole 
out of all that we know of each system, but of relating these systems to one 
another, and of attempting to gain a unified view of the entire epoch. It 
would be difficult to overrate the value of the work that has been done, yet 
surprising disagreement prevails among the best critics and historians of 
philosophy, even upon very fundamental points. The purpose of the pres- 
ent study is to get at the sources of this disagreement in the interpretation 
of one of this group of thinkers, Empedocles, and to bring into juxtaposition 
the various possibilities in the solution of the important problems, and thus 
to contribute to a more stable reconstruction of his thought. Writers upon 
Empedocles, and upon pre-Socratic thought in general, have worked too 
much in isolation; have taken too little account of each other's results. 
A fuller knowledge of the work of other critics would furnish a most whole- 
some corrective of the tendency toward venturesome conjecture. As soon 
as an adequate notion is gained of the range of divergent interpretations, 
assurance is greatly lessened in new hypotheses supported by nothing save 
the absence of conflicting testimony. There is value in the attempt to 
face the precise results given by a fair examination of the evidence, without 
effacing contradictions or filling in gaps in our data by unsupported assump- 
tions. Aristotle found Empedocles' thought at times unsatisfying because 



2 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 

of its omissions, its inconsistencies, and perhaps also its superficiality. We 
should expect philosophy at this stage in human development to present 
these characteristics. We should expect to find concepts ambiguous, 
ill-defined, often shifting in their meaning. Most of the criticism not only 
of Empedocles, but of all the thinkers of this period, has assumed in them 
far too great a degree of consistency and clearness of definition. It is true 
that the Greeks were a people with a genius for clear-cut distinctions and 
for precision of thought. Otherwise they would never have created a 
philosophy at all, much less a philosophy which included and defined the 
main concepts of all subsequent European thinking until the present 
time. But this power of clear definition was not present from the first; 
the same tentative blundering is to be found in this realm as in sculpture, 
where an equal precision and clearness of definition were ultimately attained. 
It is impossible to deny the helplessness of the early attempts in plastic art, 
though we may seek to find in them the germ of later achievement. Early 
philosophy in its fragmentary state is so susceptible of forced and figurative 
interpretation, of utter reversal of meaning by ingenious emendation of 
text or reconstruction of context, that it has not carried with it the same 
immediate proof of its relative crudity, and modern criticism has sought in 
it not only the promise of future greatness, but a degree of clearness and 
consistency not to be found in Plato or Aristotle. It has seemed to assume 
that philosophy sprang from the brain of man, as her patron goddess from 
the head of Zeus, full-grown. 

This tendency has been bound up with the inclination to view early 
philosophy as a self -developing dialectic, isolated from the influence of 
everyday experience and everyday modes of thought. It is better perhaps 
to over-emphasize the continuity of philosophy, than to treat each thinker as 
an individual isolated from those who went before him, but we can never 
hope to understand the perennial freshness and vitality of Greek thought 
unless we realize that it has its roots in constant contact with the fruitful 
soil of daily experience. Its history is to be viewed rather as a process of 
clarifying the confused but always significant notions of ordinary thought, 
than as a progressive creation of notions of its own with which to organize 
experience. This process, we may know beforehand, must be a very 
gradual one. Reflection becomes only very slowly aware of its own impli- 
cations, and admits from common life notions so vague and shifting that 
later criticism cannot tolerate their presence and tasks its ingenuity to 
spirit them away. Even in the maturest minds we find constant employ- 
ment of notions supposed to be clear simply because long familiar; we find 
distinctions newly drawn lapsing from memory; we find ideas shifting 



INTRODUCTION 3 

their meaning unconsciously in passing from one phase of a subject to 
another; we find survivals of childish modes of thought amid most pro- 
found discoveries. Much more should we expect to find these features in 
the beginnings of philosophic reflection. Distinctions seem inevitable, 
once made. We find it hard to believe that men could ever have painted 
the eye full front and the face profile, yet the understanding of the begin- 
nings of human effort in any realm requires the power to reconstruct in 
imagination the efforts of the past without employing distinctions subse- 
quently made. 

To these difficulties of interpretation are added, in the case of Empedo- 
cles, the especial problems set by the employment of highly poetic and 
imaginative imagery which nearly always obscures the meaning. The 
use of this imagery constitutes indeed a presumption that the thought is 
not over precise. Thought does not reach clear and accurate conceptions 
before command of language has been obtained, and unless the poet deliber- 
ately chose to conceal his thought, his ideas must be regarded as subject 
to the same limitations as his diction. It is conceivable that Empedocles 
should at times choose picturesque imagery to capture the ears of his hearers. 
Were his thought precise and abstract, however, he would surely, like 
Parmenides, often lapse into more logical modes of expression. We may 
well believe that much which seems to us consciously figurative was by 
the poet meant as statement of fact. It would be strange indeed if the 
mythological mode of conceiving the universe were completely abandoned 
from the very inception of philosophic thinking. 

Quite apart from the question of the worth of the mythological point 
of view — and it certainly embraces truths that scientific eras have some- 
times overlooked — it is not reasonable to suppose that a tendency so deeply 
rooted in the Greek nature could disappear otherwise than gradually. 
In so early a period as the one we are considering it must still have had pro- 
found influence. Present-day thought can hardly achieve a sympathetic 
relation with the mind of Empedocles at this point. The scientific way of 
looking at things has so effectively wrought itself into the fabric even of our 
instinctive thinking that we naturally regard as figurative and symbolical 
much that the poet meant literally. Only by conscious effort can we 
realize that personal qualities could be ascribed to any aspects of nature or 
that logical and imaginative motives could really be so interwoven as they 
are in Empedocles. In these respects Aristotle already belongs to a totally 
different world. In him begin the Procrustean methods of reducing this 
mobile and picturesque system to technical formulation. Aristotle's many 
and recurring perplexities are prophetic of the difficulties modern criticism 



4 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 

has encountered in its attempt to achieve the same task. To him with the 
entire poem at hand, just as to us with but the scattered fragments, precise 
definition seemed wanting at the points where it was most desired. This fact 
should warn us not to attempt to supplement too far or to interpret in too 
subtle a way, the information we possess. 1 

1 The literature, both critical and imaginative, that has gathered around the name 
of Empedocles is very extensive. Only those opinions and interpretations will be 
noticed in the following pages, which demand present recognition. The invaluable 
contributions of early writers have for the most part been incorporated in later dis- 
cussions, while the errors have nearly all been adequately refuted in the exhaustive 
treatment of Zeller. 






LIFE AND CHARACTER 

Empedocles was one of the men who take strong hold of the imagination 
of their fellows, and about whom a multitude of picturesque traditions 
naturally gathers to obscure the events of their lives. We know with 
certainty but a few meager facts concerning him and his activities. Most 
of these are entangled in a web of romance. 1 He was born at Akragas, at 
that time a flourishing city of Sicily. 2 His father's name was probably 
Meton, though tradition is not in entire agreement at this point. The 
father seems to have been a man prominent in political activity; the grand- 
father, named Empedocles, was apparently also a notable man, and an 
Olympic victor. These facts indicate that he belonged to a noble house 
and to a family of wealth and influence. 

The dates of his birth and death we should be glad to know with cer- 
tainty, since they have a bearing upon his relation to thinkers nearly con- 
temporary; but though considerable thought has been given to the problem, 
certainty has not been reached. Diogenes tells us that according to 
Aristotle, he died at the age of sixty, 3 and Apollodorus places his floruit 
01. 84, that is, about the year 444 b. c. This would put his life approxi- 
mately at the years 484 to 424 b. c. Zeller has made it seem probable that 
his life began and ended eight or ten years earlier. 

In the political life of his native city Empedocles took a prominent 
part. Of this there can be no doubt, though it is hopeless to attempt to 
separate the authentic from the mythical elements in the accounts handed 
down to us. It is worth while to notice these traditions, since they give 
at least a probable notion of the direction of his activity. He seems to have 
been an opponent of tyranny. His first public act was said to be the 
bringing to trial of two men accused of a conspiracy to usurp the rule. His 
refusal of the kingship offered him and his dissolution of an oligarchical 

1 No attempt will be made to examine in detail the evidence concerning Empe- 
docles' life. The facts will be outlined for their bearing on his philosophy. A very 
thorough and scholarly study may be found in Bidez, La biographie d'Empedocle 
(Gaud., 1894), a treatise whose general point of view will be noticed later. 

2 The chief authorities for this and the following statements is the account of 
Diogenes Laertius, viii, 51-77, and Suidas, who in his brief epitome cites some inde- 
pendent testimony. Both of these passages are quoted in full by Diels, Vorsokratiker, 
as well as the other important material concerning Empedocles' life. 

3 Other traditions are recorded by Diogenes. 

5 



6 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 

assembly of a thousand reveal the same democratic tendencies. 1 His 
popularity and fame reached a high pitch, and in a visit to the Olympian 
games he is said to have received an ovation from the people there. His 
enemies, however, took advantage of his absence to bring about his banish- 
ment. He seems never to have returned to his native city. Stories are 
told of his extravagant affectations of dress and manner. Timaeus calls 
attention to the contrast between the disinterested character and moderation 
of the public acts ascribed to him and the ambitious claims and egotism 
of his poetry. 2 The two are not incompatible. Moreover, the political 
acts related seem of the sort that would attract public notice, and suggest 
the man to whom political life offers a sphere for brilliant achievement, not 
one whom pressure of circumstances forces into public life. This con- 
clusion may be colored by the impression gained from his career as priest 
and wonder-worker. His claim to be a god is preserved to us not only by 
tradition, but in his own verse, wherein he describes, himself in glowing 
language as attended by throngs who follow him expecting from him the 
help of medicine or magic. 3 There is no limit to the extravagance of his 
pretensions. He promises even to render his followers able to bring the 
dead back to life. 4 Tradition records of him works as wonderful as his 
claims; the restoring to life of a woman who had been dead thirty days, the 
cleansing of a river, the warding off of pestilences, the stopping of a deadly 
wind, 5 the checking of a cloudburst, the saving of a friend from murder by 
the power of music, and other performances of the same type. It is useless 
to attempt to ascertain the source of these tales. The story of the restoring 
of the dead woman may possibly have grown out of Fragment in, as 
Burnet suggests, or it may have been a wonderful restoration from apparent 
death, as Diels confidently asserts. 6 It might, however, be a deception, 
possibly even a self-deception on the part of the wonder-worker. Essen- 
tially the same alternatives exist for many of the incidents. The only thing 
we may safely conclude from the fabric of marvels is that he was the type 
of man who inevitably gains a hold upon popular fancy. He must have 

1 Apparently this was an attempt to re-establish oligarchy after the death of 
Empedocles' father Meton, who seems to have been instrumental in originally institut- 
ing the democracy. 

2 It is here assumed that Diels' emendation of the corrupt passage, Diog. Laer., 
viii, 66, quoted Vorsokratiker, p. 158, is substantially correct. 

3 Philostr., Vita Ap., viii, 7, p. 156; Empedocles, Fr. 112, 4. 

4 Fr. in. 

■> The three incidents just named may be variations of one tale. 
6 Diels, Sitzb. d. berl. Ak. (1898) 410. 



LIFE AND CHARACTER 7 

performed works of healing and conferred other practical benefits upon 
the people to a not inconsiderable extent, before he could become a popular 
hero of this sort. That he loved recognition and courted it by benefits con- 
ferred of various sorts is clearly reflected in his verses. Miraculous deeds 
are related of many famous thinkers and public men but to no one of the 
pre-Socratics save Pythagoras are so many beneficial works of a practical 
nature ascribed. Both men were prominent not only in the politics of 
their time, but also in religious reform and in medicine. Pythagoras' 
influence was distinctly deeper and more far-reaching in its scope, but that 
may have been partly because he belonged to a somewhat earlier age. The 
world of Empedocles was less ready to give unquestioning allegiance to a 
great reformer and wonder-worker. 

The accounts of Empedocles' death tend to confirm the impression of a 
measure of charlatanism in his activities. However improbable may be 
the picturesque story that he cast himself into Mount Aetna in order to give 
the idea that he had been miraculously translated, the tale is significant of 
the way he had come to be viewed by the popular mind. The opposing 
accounts of his death from ordinary causes are evident attempts to remove 
this opprobrium. The treatment of his disappearance as an authentic 
miracle needs no special notice. Probably a mysterious mode of death or 
disappearance gave rise to the serious belief in some minds that he had 
been deified. It is not unlikely that he died in obscurity in the Pelopon- 
nesus, as one account relates. 

It is important to notice the tradition connecting Empedocles with the 
attempt to found an empirical school of medicine in Sicily, since this has a 
bearing upon certain theories later to be discussed. Pliny and Galen are 
the most important witnesses to this effect, and confirmation is afforded by 
the great interest the fragments reveal in physiological matters. 1 Indeed, 
a large majority of his detailed observations upon natural phenomena are 
in this field. In them he shows a closeness of observation much greater 
than in the somewhat superficial fancies upon meteorology and astronomy. 
This would seem to indicate the stimulus of contact with other minds 
working upon the same problems, if not actual benefit derived from the 
results of their investigations. The degree of his indebtedness we have 
not the means of ascertaining. The influence of medical study is evident 
not only in specifically physiological matters, but probably in the develop- 
ment of the theory of four elements, as will be noticed later. 

It is idle to attempt to reconstruct in a time-succession the events of 

1 Cf. Pliny, Nat. Hist., xxix, i, 5; Galen, Meth. Med., A, 3, and other citations in 
Diels, § 3. 



8 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 

Empedocles' life or the various phases of his activity. Bidez pictures in a 
most fascinating way how the young man of boundless success and popu- 
larity in politics, in healing, and in mystic wonder-working, retires in later 
life in banishment to the utmost seclusion, where he delves into the secrets 
of nature and becomes the sober and conservative man of science. Diels 
assumes with equal confidence almost a reverse sequence of his activities. 
There is, indeed, no valid reason why they may not have been contempo- 
raneous. History presents more than one instance of a simultaneous 
union of charlatanism and extravagant desire for acclaim, with sober and 
earnest scientific investigation. Renan has called attention to the parallel- 
ism in this respect between Empedocles and Paracelsus. 

It is important not to overestimate the element of charlatanism in his 
character. The claims he made could hardly be made at the present time 
by a sane man in good faith. But eras of great and sudden advance in the 
scientific understanding of nature usually bring with them extravagant hopes 
and undue self-confidence on the part of leaders of thought. In Empedocles' 
time the sobering influence of past disappointment might well be even less 
apparent than in the time of the Renaissance, when a similar extravagance 
appeared. A conscious impostor he probably was not. The sincerity 
evident in his verses and the measurable results attained in his investiga- 
tions presuppose a degree of seriousness of character and purpose incom- 
patible with the deliberate impostor. But evidences from the same 
source make it clear that he could fall into extravagant estimates of his own 
powers. For he is a brilliant rather than a careful and patient investigator. 
He lacks the power to criticize, or even to correlate thoroughly his own 
results. This, in an age so untried in the art of gauging its own powers, 
combined with his passion for acclaim and influence may explain his posi- 
tion without assuming deliberate deception. 

Eduard Meyer has called attention to certain characteristics of Sicilian 
temper and life which are interesting in relation to this estimate of Empedo- 
cles' character. 1 He suggests that the fife of Sicily has more in common 
with the Orient than with the rest of Greece in certain respects, notably in 
the lack of restraint, sanity, and balance so strikingly evident in the Greek 
temper elsewhere. Charlatanism and magic would therefore find a readier 
soil here than in other parts of Greece. With regard to Empedocles, at 
least, it would seem that a happier analogy might be found. The root of 
the tendency toward magic and wonder-working is not with him a weak 
hold upon experience and a leaning toward mysticism as in the Orient, but 
an impatience of the slowness of sober investigation, and an attempted 

1 Eduard Meyer, Geschichte des Altertums, IIT, § 369; cf. § 365. 



LIFE AND CHARACTER 9 

anticipation of the results which empirical science seems to promise. In 
this his temper is, as already noted, somewhat allied to that of the Renais- 
sance. It is keen, inventive, imaginative, prolific in new ideas, but lacks 
the incisiveness, precision, thoroughness, and caution usually so character- 
istic of Greek thought. 

RELATION TO OTHER THINKERS 

The ancients were fond of connecting Empedocles' name with that of 
Pythagoras. This was partly due, no doubt, to the resemblance in their 
lives, but still more to the close relation between certain of their doctrines, 
especially the transmigration of souls and abstinence from animal diet. 
Some modern criticism has been inclined to accept without question this 
close relationship between the two, in some instances tracing most strained 
analogies in their systems. Tannery, for example, regards the main outlines 
of the Physics as growing out of Pythagoreanism. 1 Strife in its relation to 
the elements is the same as the void of the Pythagoreans. The alternate 
inspiration and expiration of the void by the plenum is replaced by the 
more mechanical alternation of motion and rest. Most recent criticism 
has been inclined to question the measure of indebtedness heretofore 
assumed. Even Zeller limits the influence of Pythagoras almost wholly to 
the doctrines of the Purifications. 2 Otto Kern and Dummler attribute 
to the influence of the Orphics these 'religious doctrines. 3 It is quite 
clear that most of the ancient testimony upon this point is untrust- 
worthy. The late Pythagoreans desired to bring the two reformers into 
close relation, and forged documents to that end. The letter purporting to 
be written by Telauges attempts to establish this connection through the 
teachings of Hippasus and Brotinus, but it is now universally admitted to be 
spurious. Many of the traditions recorded are glaring absurdities, as, for 
example, the assertion that he was the pupil of Pythagoras himself, by 
whom he was expelled for plagiarism, it being decreed thereafter that the 
doctrines should be communicated to no maker of verses. 

In the teachings of the Physics there is no certain evidence of serious 
indebtedness to Pythagoras. 4 Some of the ideas of the Purifications, 

1 Tannery, pp. 314, 306. 

2 Zeller, p. 824. 

3 Cf. references on p. 10, 3. 

4 The doctrine regarding the sun may be an exception, but we are too little informed 
of the position of either of these two thinkers on this subject to make certain any con- 
nection between them. The fourfold oath of the Pythagoreans, Aet. i, 3, 8, even if it 
originated early, is no indication of an indebtedness of Empedocles to them in his 
doctrine of the elements. It is clear that the fourfold division of the elements existed 



IO ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 

however, and in particular the theory of transmigration of souls, were in all 
probability derived from him. Burnet has made it probable that Pytha- 
goras held this doctrine, resting his conclusion chiefly on the association by 
Herodotus of his name with that of Salmoxis, and upon the certainty that 
Pythagoras taught the allied doctrine of the kinship of men and beasts. 1 

If Alcmaeon was a Pythagorean, which is somewhat doubtful, our 
view of Empedocles' indebtedness must be modified. For in all probability 
he owed much to Alcmaeon in his doctrine of sense-perception, and pos- 
sibly the indebtedness extends farther. 2 

In the case of the Orphics, from whom Kern supposes both the Pythag- 
oreans and Empedocles to have gotten the theory of transmigration of souls 
and other doctrines, we are in the gravest difficulty when we attempt to 
get at the truth. It is a fact that the Orphic poems in their present form 
contain many striking parallels to the teachings of Empedocles. This 
extends not only to the special doctrine just noticed, but also to the spring- 
ing up of human beings from the union of separate members, and to the 
supposed pantheism of Fragment 134. But we do not know when the 
Orphic poems were cast into their present form, and while some portions 
of them are unquestionably early, it is impossible to determine in individual 
points on which side the indebtedness lies. Indeed in some instances we 
may doubt that the correspondences mentioned exist. In the doctrine of 
the world-egg, for example, our evidence shows that Empedocles' universe 
is shaped not like an egg, but like a spheroid. Even if it were egg-shaped 
it would not be parallel to the notion of the Orphics, for their doctrine had 
reference not primarily to the form of the world, but to its original embryonic 
character. We may, however, accept the conclusions of Kern and other 
workers in this field to the extent of recognizing that Empedocles allied 
himself in his religious poem to the Orphic cult of his day, 3 and that his 
activities as a reformer were probably connected with the propaganda of 

in current thought very early. Cf. Her. Bywater, Fr. 25; Diels, 76. The Pythagorean 
Harmony is even more alien in essence to Empedocles than is the Heraclitean, pres- 
ently to be noticed. 

1 Cf. Burnet, p. 100. Rohde, 17 i 2 , emphasizes strongly the influence of Pytha- 
goreanism upon this and other doctrines of the Purifications. 

2 Upon Alcmaeon's relation to the Pythagoreans, cf. Arist, Met., i, 5, 986a, 27. 
We gain a high impression of Alcmaeon as an observer from the few notices of him. 
For his influence upon Empedocles, see further pp. 77 and 83. 

3 Kern, "Empedocles und die Orphiker," Archiv, I, 498; Susemihl, De Theog. 
Orph. Forma Antiq.; Dummler, "Zur Orphischen Kosmologie, " Archiv, VII, 148; 
Maas, Orpheus, Mtinchen, 1893. The latter regards the Purifications itself as an 
Orphic poem, an interesting though uncertain hypothesis. 



RELATION TO OTHER THINKERS II 

that body. 1 It is easier to understand his inconsistencies if he was thus 
associated with a religious organization than if all his teachings were the 
outcome of the working of an individual mind. 

It is tempting to consider Empedocles' thought as an attempt to mediate 
between the philosophy of complete motion as formulated by Heraclitus 
and of complete rest as taught by Parmenides. This is Aristotle's sugges- 
tion and is essentially Zeller's view of Empedocles' historical position. 2 
Aside from the attractive definiteness of this mode of statement, a few doc- 
trines suggest at first sight a connection between the two. Strife reminds 
us of Heraclitus' War, Love of his Harmony, a name actually used by Em- 
pedocles to represent Love. 3 The doctrine of effluences again has a definite 
relation to the earlier view of the constant flowing away of particles from 
objects. Nevertheless, a study of the two thinkers tends to lessen the 
impression of close kinship between them, and leads us to regard the influ- 
ence of Heraclitus as at most rather an external one. The chief reason for 
this conclusion is the fact that of the most vital and significant ideas of the 
earlier thinker no trace is to be found in his successor. The notion of the 
universal flux of all things does not find adequate representation in Empedo- 
cles' world of motion. Empedocles lays, so far as we know, no special 
emphasis upon the instability of things in the present world, as a more 
universal and subtle fact than our senses would lead us to suppose. As 
Burnet puts it, "he is attempting to mediate between Parmenides and the 
evidence of the senses, not between him and Heraclitus." 4 In Empedocles' 
doctrine of Strife, again, there seems to be no real duplication of Heraclitus' 
notion of War. For the activity of Strife is throughout baneful and there is 
no trace of recognition of the fine paradox of existence therein involved, 
readily as it would fit into the outline of his system. We may say essentially 
the same of his notion of Harmony. In the doctrine of four elements, which 
Zeller regards as an extension of the Heraclitean three, there is no reason 
to assume historical indebtedness. For Heraclitus seems to be using merely 
the ideas of popular thought, of which traces are found as early as Homer. 5 

1 The hymn to Apollo, referred to on p. 16, probably belonged to this phase of his 
activities. 

2 Plato's comparison of Empedocles to Heraclitus contains no allusion to Par- 
menides. Heraclitus is said to combine the notions of the one and the many in a simul- 
taneous way as opposed to the successive periods of Empedocles. 

3 Fr. 27, 3. 

4 It seems strange that Zeller should regard as a concession to Eleaticism Empe- 
docles' recognition that "das Werden und Vergehen im strengen Sinn nicht denkbar 
sind." None of the Ionians admitted generation and destruction in the strict sense. 

5 Homer, //., O, 180. 



12 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 

We must assume a somewhat closer relation to Parmenides. 1 Here 
again, to be sure, the earlier thinker far surpasses the later in his grasp of 
the great problem where they come into relation, yet there can be no ques- 
tion that Empedocles gave specific consideration to the objections Par- 
menides had raised to looking upon the changes of the world as real. His 
theory is by no means an answer to these difficulties, but the abandonment 
of a single element is in part motived by the desire to avoid them. 2 

Not only in this point but in certain other aspects of his system we find 
great indebtedness to Parmenides. In not a few instances the very phrase- 
ology bears witness to the relationship. The introduction to the poem, 
with its appeal to the gods "to turn from my tongue the madness of these 
men," and to the Muse "to send a chariot from the abode of piety, " contains 
satirical reminders of Parmenides' introductory words. The emphasis 
upon the senses as a means of gaining knowledge, expressed in the same 
connection, evidently is motived by the conscious remembrance of Par- 
menides' injunction to reject the evidence of the senses. 3 

In the doctrine of alternating conditions of motion and rest, Zeller sees 
the influence of Parmenides' view that the manifold of sense is mere appear- 
ance. 4 This seems fanciful. There is no logical relation between the 
two ideas. The description of the Sphaeros by Parmenides doubtless 
suggested to Empedocles' imagination the picture of this movement in the 
world cycle; but the notion of the cycle as a whole has as its primary root 
the desire to put the life of the world into a compassable story with a 
genuine plot and a completeness to the imagination. Zeller attributes 
further to the influence of Parmenides the tendency to treat the elements 
as two instead of four, a tendency noted by Aristotle and easily remarked 
in certain parts of the poem. The influence of Parmenides here seems 
probable. 

The denial of a void in the Sphaeros is so distinctly in the manner of 
Parmenides that it no doubt comes from him.s In certain minor problems 
of physiology we shall note later a connection between the two thinkers. 

1 No special weight can be given to ancient testimony on this point, because so 
much that is transmitted to us on Empedocles' relation to other thinkers is evidently 
false. Cf. Simpl., Phys., 25, 19; D. L., viii, 55. 

2 Upon the defects of his solution cf. p. 42. 

3 Fragments 2 and 4. 

4 Zeller says also that Empedocles had taken over Parmenides' moveless matter. 
That this is an error will be shown (p. 35). In both of these points Zeller is followed 
by Windelband, 49, and by others. - 

s Cf. Fr. 13 and 14. 



RELATION TO OTHER THINKERS 1 3 

The relation of Anaxagoras and Empedocles raises a question rather of 
logical priority than of influence one upon the other. For it seems that 
both attacked the same problems at practically the same time, from similar 
points of view, but with no large measure of consideration of each other's 
theories. Eleaticism and sense experience, on the basis of their Ionian 
inheritance, set the problems for them both. Upon the question of logical 
precedence varying opinions have been held. The traditional account 
places Empedocles before Anaxagoras. Some modern treatments, notably 
those of Tannery and Gomperz, reverse the order on the ground that 
Empedocles is the more mature thinker. 1 Aristotle has given us a state- 
ment which bears upon the problem, but it is diversely interpreted. Anax- 
agoras, he says, was Empedocles' senior, but was "later in works" rots 
8' t/oyots vo-repos. 2 This may refer to the time when he made public his 
philosophical work, or to the merit of his theories. Bonitz and Diels recog- 
nize the two alternatives, but both rightly prefer the latter. Gomperz holds 
in a modified form the second alternative. Aristotle he thinks wishes to 
treat Anaxagoras after Empedocles because he is farther from the Monism 
of the Ionians. 3 This seems hardly a probable interpretation. 

Even were we sure of Aristotle's meaning, his statement would not 
settle the question. The examination of the most fundamental teachings 
of the two thinkers seems to place Anaxagoras in advance of Empedocles. 
In the doctrine of the elements his position is the logical conclusion, perhaps 
we might say the reductio ad absurdum of the qualitative conception of 
element. Empedocles' position is more superficial, though externally 
nearer to the modern view. As will be shown elsewhere, a limitation of 
the number of the elements, when they are defined qualitatively, is a most 
palpable ignoring of facts. 4 Anaxagoras' vovs, too, is a much more clearly 
defined and mature notion, with all its defects, than Empedocles' Love and 
Strife. 

Gorgias is said by tradition to have been Empedocles' pupil, and to have 
claimed that he himself had been present at the performance of magical 
tricks by his teacher. 5 It is generally recognized that little weight can be 

1 Ritter and Preller seem to have placed Anaxagoras first from the point of view 
of strict chronological sequence. 

2 Met. A 3, 984a, n; cf. Simpl. Phys. 25, 19. 

3 Cf. Gomperz' note to p. 183. Gomperz greatly overrates Empedocles' theory 
of the elements, a fact which doubtless has influenced his interpretation of this passage. 

4 Cf. p. 42. 

s D. L., viii, 59, citing Satyrus as authority. Repetitions of the traditions are cited 
by Diels, A, 2 and 19. 




14 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 

attached to traditions of this sort. Plato's Meno has been taken as evidence 
that Gorgias adopted Empedoclean physics as a whole or in part. It is 
very doubtful how much may be inferred from this passage. Socrates 
when pressed by Meno for a definition of color, asks, 

Socrates. Do you want me to answer you in the fashion of Gorgias, which you 
can readily follow ? 

Meno. I do of course. 

Socrates. Then do you agree with Empedocles' theory that there are effluences 
from things ? 

Meno. Yes, indeed. 

Socrates. And passages into which and through which the effluences pass ? 

Meno. Assuredly. 

Socrates. And some of the effluences fit given passages while others are too 
small or too large ? 

Meno. That is true. 

Socrates. And you have an idea of sight ? 

Meno. Yes. 

Socrates. Then, as Pindar says, "from this understand my meaning. " Color 
is an effluence from things, commensurate with the sight and perceptible. * 

From this passage Diels constructs almost a biography of Gorgias. 2 
The definition here given he thinks must be, as it stands, quoted from 
Gorgias, probably from a lost work on Physics. In his maturity Gorgias 
asserted the impossibility of knowing nature, therefore it must have been 
written in youth. He must have adopted the teachings of Empedocles, but 
later have perceived their weakness. The factor which led to the break- 
down of his faith in Empedoclean physics was the reflections of Parmenides, 
which he probably came to know through Empedocles' influence. He 
was thrown by this loss of faith in what he had before held so secure, into 
a period of despair and negation, in which he wrote his treatise on non-being. 
He recovered himself, in the third and final epoch of his life, only to the 
extent of taking refuge from scepticism in practical life and rhetoric. 

But Plato's words do not prove that Gorgias ever seriously gave cre- 
dence to the Empedoclean physics, or even to his explanation of sense-per- 
ception. It is quite as likely that he employed the doctrine of pores and 
effluences simply as an easy, though, for his day at least, a superficial mode 
of accounting for certain facts. His claim to polymathy involved the having 
a ready answer for all questions, and this theory of pores and effluences 
was a part of his stock in trade. It is not unlikely that he was in the habit 

i Meno, 76 C. 

2 Diels, "Emp. u. Gorg.," Sitzb. d. Berl. Ak. y 1884, p. 343. 



RELATION TO OTHER THINKERS 1 5 

of throwing the responsibility for the theory upon Empedocles and his 
interlocutors as is done by Plato here, not committing himself to it, but 
simply aiming at an answer that would satisfy them. Possibly the use of 
the plural Ac'yere is a touch of dramatization of Gorgias' manner in address- 
ing, as he usually did, a group of hearers. The reason for Plato's identify- 
ing Gorgias with the definition instead of Empedocles alone, is obvious from 
the context. Meno is fascinated by Gorgias' polymathy, and Plato makes 
Socrates play upon this fact. 

The relation between Gorgias and Empedocles in point of style will be 
considered later. 



RANK AS A PHILOSOPHER 

Of the general merit of Empedocles' thought the most diverse opinions 
have been held. Aristotle accords him no very high praise, yet he gives 
him more attention than any pre-Socratic thinker save Democritus. In 
all antiquity we hear of no individual or school that committed itself to 
his system, yet notices of his opinions are everywhere found, and more of his 
actual words are preserved than of any other of these early thinkers. Lucre- 
tius speaks of him with strong enthusiasm. 1 Among modern writers Diels 
regards his thought as "ein interessanter Eklecticismus," with little origi- 
nality or thoroughness; 2 Tannery agrees essentially with this estimate^ 
Zeller looks upon him as an original thinker, who made a distinct contri- 
bution to the history of thought; 4 but Zeller's judgment is much more 
moderate than that of Gomperz, who strongly dissents from the charge of 
eclecticism, and accords him an exceedingly high place. Gomperz ack- 
nowledges Empedocles' inconsistencies, but attributes them to restless and 
eager reaching out into new fields, to the neglect of adequate correlation of 
results already obtained. 

There is an element of truth in Gomperz' position, though he over- 
rates Empedocles' importance. Great as is Empedocles' indebtedness to 
other thinkers, his defect is on the whole a lack of thoroughness rather than 
a lack of originality. He is clever but not profound. He is not a philo- 
sophic mind in the highest sense of that term, though he seized on many 
interesting and novel ideas. He does not scruple to accept solutions ready 
made, and without much regard to their harmony with his system as a 
whole, but most of his ideas are his own, and the general outlines of his 
thought are worked into a fairly well articulated whole. 

1 i, 729 flf. 

2 Emp. u. Gorg., p. 343. 
3 P-3i5- 

4 Zeller regards as Empedocles' most important contribution, his attempt at 
mediating between Eleaticism and the facts of change, and his advance in the working 
out of the notion of element. — Zeller, p. 836. 



16 



WRITINGS 

Fragments have come down to us from two poems of Empedocles, The 
Physics and The Purifications. Other works were ascribed to him in 
antiquity. Aristotle is quoted by Diogenes Laertius to the effect that he 
wrote a Prelude to Apollo and a Crossing of Xerxes, as well as tragedies and 
political writings. 1 In the same account we are told that Heraclides 
doubted the authenticity of the tragedies, while Hieronymus claimed to 
have seen forty-three of them, and Neanthes to have seen seven. 2 The 
Prelude and the Crossing oj Xerxes were burned, tradition relates, by a 
sister or daughter, because of their incompleteness, or as another account 
sa/s, by accident. Zeller doubts that any of these notices rests upon the 
authority of Aristotle, and in any case our knowledge of the works extends 
no farther than the names. Of the two writings from which portions have 
come down to us, the authorship is not called in question. Diogenes tells 
us that the Physics and Purifications together were five thousand lines 
long, Suidas says the Physics was two thousand. 3 Diels makes it seem 
probable that the text of Diogenes is corrupt, and that the original had -n-avra 
Tpto-xtAta instead of 7r«/TaKto-xtA.ta.4 In all there remain to us about 450 
verses. 

Stein distributes the fragments of the Physics into three books, following 
the authority of Tzetzes, 5 and the usual reading of Suidas. 6 Diels assigns 
the fragments of Stein's third book to the Purifications. His reason seems 
to be the lack of harmony in content between these fragments, whose theme 
is religious, and the rest of the Physics .1 He notes that some important 
manuscripts of Suidas speak of two books instead of three, and that in others 
two was the original reading, having been changed by a later hand. 8 The 

1 D. L., viii, 57; Suidas tells us, apparently from Hesychios' catalogue, that besides 
the two works known to us from fragments he wrote "many others." There is an 
important allusion to the "Hymn of Apollo" in Men. (Rhet.) Spengel. 1, 2, 2. 

2 The last statement is based upon Diels' emendation of Diogenes. 
3Wellman, Pauly, Realencyc, credits Diogenes with the statement that the 

Purifications contained 3,000 verses. 
4 Diels, Berl. Sitz., 1898, 396. 
s Tzetzes, Chiliad, vii, 522. 

6 Cited Diels, Vors. 

7 Diels, as cited in n. 4. 

8 He thinks through the influence of Tzetzes. Diels has been at great pains to 
adduce external evidence for his position (cf. Poet. Fr. ad Jr., 131), but his points seem 
a little strained. His thesis, however, is not an impossible one. 

17 



1 8 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 

division into books was probably not made by Empedocles, and the only 
question of importance is whether the disputed fragments belong to the 
Physics or not. This problem will be considered at a later time. 1 

The title of the Physics -n-epl cfyvaews appears not to have meant "con- 
cerning nature," nor yet "concerning the primary substance" as Burnet 
supposes, but probably "concerning becoming" or "concerning the forma- 
tion of things. " 2 Against Burnet's view may be urged the following con- 
siderations. Of the three passages which he cites as associating the term 
in the sense of primary substance with early philosophy, the first, from 
Plato's Laws, tells us merely that the thinkers in question meant by <f>v<n<> 
the "primary generation of things" rrjv -n-epl ra irpoira yeveo-iv.s This 
by no means limits their theme to the search for the primary substance. It 
may quite as well suggest the story of the genesis of the world, and the 
process of world building. Even with this broad interpretation, however, 
too much significance should not be attached to Plato's statement in this 
connection. Plato's point is that these thinkers tended to regard as 
"nature" and as "natural things" those existences that were first in time, 
that is, certain forms of matter. This does not determine the meaning of 
the title of their work. We could not say that the title "morals, " if it were 
affixed to a utilitarian book, had the meaning "expediency. " As a title, it 
is to be taken in the ordinary acceptation of the term at the time the book 
is written. The passage from Aristotle's Physics specifically states that the 
use of <£v<ris for material constituents, is defended by Antiphon on the 
ground that these are the ovo-ta, or essence of a thing. 4 Clearly, if 
this be true, the word cannot as such suggest the simple meaning "primary 
substance. " The third passage cited by Burnet, from Aristotle's Meta- 
physics, must be interpreted in the light of the Physics passage, as well as 
of the suggestion Aristotle makes a little later, that all the various uses of 
the word <£wris are a transference of meaning from its use as ovcrta, and 
have some implication that the thing so denominated is their essential 
nature. 5 This statement, while clearly untrue to the history of the word, 
is yet not without significance for the present question. 

We may urge further against Burnet's position that the search for the 
primary substance is by no means the main interest of the pre-Socratic 
thinkers. Disproportionate prominence has been given to this aspect of 

i P. 90. 

2 Burnet, p. 12. 

3 Legg., 892 C. Cf. the term y£pe<ns as used a little later, 896 A. 

4 Phys.B. i, 193 a, 9 ff. 

5 A 4, 1014 b, 32; 1015 a, 13. 



WRITINGS 



19 



their thought by Aristotle, following the trend of his own persistent prob- 
lems. 1 This we conclude from the spirit and character of the fragments 
we possess. Those which deal with this problem are so few in number and 
so brief, so little is transmitted to us concerning the grounds of the doctrines 
held, so intense and vital seems the interest in problems of world building, 
of astronomy and physiology, that we are inclined to regard these problems 
as the more important side of their thought. 2 

The suggestion has been made above that the meaning of the word as a 
book title would probably reflect the current acceptation of the term. The 
word had already various meanings, and it is not easy to say which is the 
most important, or to reproduce that thought in an English equivalent. 
The term " Nature" as used by us is equally complex, but it has associations 
arising from later modes of thought. 3 Moreover, it does not preserve its 
etymological suggestions to the extent that is true of the Greek word. 
Aristotle gives as his first definition of (ftvcns, 17 yei/ecrts twv <f>vo/jiivo)v, and 
as a synonym to <£veo-0<u, and in a well-known passage of Empedocles 
not only is the root meaning employed, but it is implied that men currently 
use the term in this sense. "There is no becoming (<f>v<ri<;) of things that 
are, nor any end in baneful death, but only mingling and separation of 
things mingled; but by men it is called 'becoming.' "4 These instances* 

1 Subsequent writers in the main follow Aristotle. The relative ease of appre- 
hending, stating and contrasting various views regarding the primary substance also 
has contributed to the prominence of this question in subsequent writers upon the pre- 
Socratics. 

2 Note the nature of the promise given by Parmenides of things to be discussed, 
Fragment ro, and Xenophon's offhand statement of the search of these early thinkers: 
7repi T7)S tu>i> iravTuv 0&rea>s. It is Situs 6 KaXo^fievos bird tuiv <TO<t>i<rTU)v Kdcr/xos e<pv 
ical riaiv avdyKais eKaara ylyvercu tlov ovpavlwv, Xen. Mem. i, i, n. The form of 
statement of the problem of the primary substance in the fragments of these thinkers 
seems usually to suggest the question in the form that lies closest to the old mythical 
mode of approaching it, "what have things come from," and "how did they come 
from it," rather than "what are things made of." In other words the time form of 
statement, the "world-story" is often the aspect in which the question is suggested by 
the philosopher's own words. Cf. Her., Fr. 30; Xenoph., Fr. 27,33; Anax., Fr. 1. 
Note also the importance in Anaximander and Anaximenes of the thought of the 
infinite substance as an inexhaustible reservoir, from which have come and are coming 
the things of this world. 

3 These are chiefly suggestions of teleology, and a tendency to make an abstraction 
of nature as an entity. The later use of <pt<ris in Greece had somewhat the same 
associations. 

4 Fr. 8. Hardy, Begriff der 0u<rts, p. 21, can hardly be right in inferring from this 
fragment that Empedocles wished to give the term 0tf<m the meaning "Verbindung 
u. Trennung." 

5 Cf. also the passage of Plato referred to. 



y 



20 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 

show that the verbal idea could naturally be suggested by the word, and it 
seems not at all unlikely that it had this meaning if employed as a title to 
these early treatises. The most frequent use of the word up to this time seems 
to represent the nature of a given thing in the sense of its "construction" or 
" make-up." So it is used in Homer of the plant given Odysseus. 1 "He 
showed me its nature; it was black at the root and had a flower like milk. " 
Something like this must be its use in the two fragments of Parmenides where 
the word occurs, in Heraclitus, Fragment i, and in the two instances of the 
word's use in Empedocles, besides the passage cited. 2 We may reasonably 
conclude then, that Empedocles called his poem "concerning the formation 
of things, " with just the double suggestion that is contained in the English 
phrase, that is, "how the world was formed" and "what is its present 
organization." 3 

i Od., k, 303. 

2 Parmenides, Fr. 16, 3; Fr. 10, 5. Empedocles, Fr. 63; Fr. no, 5. Epich., Fr. 
4, <f>foi$ is personified. 

3 The common use of term meaning "stature" or "bodily make-up" by Pindar 
and others has not traveled far from this use in the philosophers. It is not beyond the 
range of possibility that the early thinkers employed as a title a phrase used by Xen. 
Mem. i, 1, n, irepi rrjs twv irdvrwv 0i/<rews. 



STYLE 

In few writers in the whole range of literature are the artistic and the 
scientific impulse so fused, as in Empedocles. Plato in many respects 
furnishes the nearest parallel, although he is capable of a degree of logical 
abstraction that excludes poetic expression. Lucretius, with whom 
Empedocles is most often compared on this point, furnishes a striking 
contrast. Lucretius is not lacking in poetic power — far from it. But the 
two types of interest alternate in him; they are not fused. His poetic 
passages are interspersed among abstract discussions to which the poetic 
form is accidental. There are few passages in Empedocles where the po- 
etic form is a matter of chance. He stands as the unique link between the 
mythological, poetic way of looking at the universe, and the scientific. His 
imagery is not adornment; it is integral to the main structure of his thought 
and cannot be detached from it. It is difficult for moderns, as it was for 
Aristotle, to avoid conceiving him in purely logical terms, reducing his 
system to abstract formulation, but when this is done his thought is not 
truly apprehended. In determining his contribution to the history of 
certain scientific concepts it is allowable to treat him in this partial way. 
But to interpret him as a whole, the imaginative, poetic side of the man 
must not be detached from the philosophical. When it is said that Empedo- 
cles was more of a poet than Lucretius or Parmenides, it is not meant that 
he had a better grasp of artistic expression, but that his original concep- 
tion was poetic. The poetic form and imagery never cloaked an abstract 
skeleton. 

This fact, as has elsewhere been noted, has much to do with the peculiar 
difficulty subsequent writers and thinkers have had in ascertaining his 
exact meaning in reference even to such concrete problems as the method 
of vision. Aristotle consequently accused him of deliberately employing 
poetic language to cheat his hearers, when he was at a loss for something 
to say. 1 But this is altogether unfair. Imaginative vividness took hold 
of him with more persuasiveness than did logical consistency, and he inevit- 
ably baffles minds not constituted like his own. The important thing in 
understanding him is to stop thinking at the right moment. On almost 
every problem his thought, when pushed beyond a certain point, presents 

1 Rhetoric, T 5, 1407 a, 33; cf. Meteor B 3, 357 a, 24. 

21 



2 2 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 

contradictions and absurdities; up to that point, it is singularly suggestive 
and clear. 1 

The question was sometimes asked in antiquity whether Empedocles 
was a poet or not. Such an inquiry implies a strange lack of perception 
and seems to have had no other root but a feeling of the inherent incom- 
patibility of philosophical thinking with poetic form. 2 The feeling is 
indeed warranted, for philosophic thought usually implies an abstract 
precision quite alien to the richness of associative suggestion essential to 
poetry. But Empedocles' thinking is chiefly imagining, and just because 
he was something less as a philosopher, he is more as a poet, or at least more 
uniformly poetical. Yet even Aristotle falls into confusion on this point, 
and assures us that Empedocles and Homer have nothing in common save 
the meter, and that the former should be called a writer on nature rather 
than a poet. 3 He had elsewhere, however, described him as "Homeric," 
and had called attention to his power in diction and to his employment of 
metaphor and other poetic figures. 4 The second passage shows how the 
first should be interpreted and indicates that the denial to him of the name 
poet is due simply to his subject-matter. 5 Cicero, and Lucretius also, 
seem to have recognized his poetic merit. 6 

Empedocles' verse is not without its defects, chiefly in the direction of an 
over-exuberance of fancy, and a fondness for striking and even startling 
modes of expression. Such, for example, are the description of the ear as 
a "fleshy sprout," of milk as a "white putrefaction," of the first forms 
produced as "whole-natured," of the strange combinations of animals as 
fiovyevrj avSpoirpiopa, as, dvSpo<f>vrj fiovKpava, and as eiAiVoS' aKptro^eipa, 
phrases which no effort of the English language can reproduce. His 
imagery is for the most part appropriate and happy, however, and very 
often full of picturesque vividness and originality. 

Empedocles shares with his predecessors a directness of address and a 
constant use of pronouns of the first and second persons that sound strange 

1 Of course the element of conscious art is not absent from Empedocles' poetry, 
but his art was in essential harmony with his thought. 

2 Lactant. Inst. Div., ii, 12, 4; Schol. ad Dionys. Thrac, 734, n; Plutarch, 
De and. poet., 2, 16 C {Vors. 23, 24, 25). One is surprised to find even Burnet 
assigning accidental reasons for Empedocles' employment of poetic form (p. 216). 

3 Arist, Poet, i, 1447 b, 17. 

4 Diog. Laert., viii, 57. 

s Later statements to this effect are in the main repetitions of Aristotle, not inde- 
pendent judgments. Cf. the passages cited by Usener, Munch. Sits., 1892, 606. 
6 Cic, De Or., i, 50, 217; Lucr. i, 730. 



STYLE 23 

to modern ears. He follows also the tradition of Greek philosophy in his 
outspoken censure of the views of others. Not only as revealed in these 
points, but throughout almost the entire work, an emotional tone char- 
acterizes it to a greater extent than is usual among the pre-Socratics. Hera- 
clitus alone is comparable to him in the intense feeling attending even his 
most impersonal thought. 

Aristotle tells us that Empedocles was the inventor of Rhetoric, as Zeno 
of Dialectic. 1 Recent critics seem to be in substantial agreement that this 
refers not to the formulation of scientific rules or to the teaching of 
Rhetoric as a distinct art, but rather to the practice of thoughtful elabora- 
tion of his speeches by which his work became a significant foundation for 
subsequent thinkers who put into systematic form the rules of the art. 2 
He was doubtless a man of great eloquence, and his political influence was 
probably due in large measure to his skill as an orator. 

Diels regards Empedocles' relation to Gorgias in this connection as 
an exceedingly close one.s He gives some weight to the doubtful tradition 
that Gorgias was his pupil 4 and regards the highly conscious and artificial 
style of the rhetorician as largely formed through the poet's influence. His 
attempt to find Gorgias' o-xrjf^aTa in Empedocles' poetry seems not wholly 
successful, although we cannot deny as does Blass that his verse, more than 
other early poetry, contains certain artificialities of diction and sentence 
structure that are usually regarded as characteristic of Gorgias. Conscious 
balance of clauses, paronomasia, and the use of striking compounds, are 
among the artificialities noted by Diels; but the resemblance is not close 
enough to prove a direct relationship between the two. Norden's attempt 
to establish the indebtedness of Gorgias and Empedocles, in independence 
of one another, to Heraclitus at those very points is significant. 5 The figures 
in question, while used so extensively by Gorgias as to be looked upon as 
characteristic of his style, probably represent to a certain extent the rhetori- 

1 D. L., viii, 57; ix, 25; Cf. Sext. Emp., vii, 6; Quint., iii, 2; Suidas (Diels, 
Vors., §§ 5, 19). 

2 Blass, Attische Beredsamkeit, p. 16, is inclined to think that Empedocles' claim 
to universal wisdom and his wandering life had influence in allying his name with that 
of the Sophists, and consequently in associating him with the beginnings of Rhetoric. 
It may be well to note the omission of specific mention of Empedocles in Arist. Soph. EL, 
33, 183 b, 29, an omission that would be surprising were his contribution to Rhetoric 
other than has been defined. 

3 Emp. u. Gorg., loc. cit. 

4 Satyros ace. to D. L., viii, 58 (cf. Quint., iii, 1, 8). 
s Norden, Die antike Kunstprosa, p. 17. 



24 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 

cal tendency of his time, and were used more or less by many speakers 
and writers then and earlier. 

The discussion of Diels, inconclusive as it is, is very subtle, and throws 
an interesting and significant light upon the characteristics of style and 
thought which Empedocles shared with the Sicilians, upon the exaggerations 
of his style, and upon his kinship in temper and style with the Sophists. 



THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 

In the exordium of his poem Empedocles impressively urges upon his 
hearers the importance of recognizing the true limits of their knowledge. 
The temper in which this exhortation is given is far from that which the 
theme would suggest to a modern mind. The words are those of a seer 
who would keep sacred the mysteries he has beheld, and would rebuke the 
presumption of other men who claim to understand the world, not the words 
of the scientist who realizes the need of a cautious method of research. 1 
A theory of knowledge is not formulated here or elsewhere in the poem. 
We look in vain for any answer to the question what the exact limits of 
knowledge are; how we are to distinguish truth from falsehood; what is 
the relative value of, and the relation between, rational and sense knowledge. 
Not only in the fragments handed down to us does light fail us upon these 
points, but their spirit makes it clear that in the complete poem they were 
not treated. There are many lines which, taken without their context, or 
without comparison with statements made elsewhere, might lead, indeed 
have led, to the imputing to him of a pure empiricism, "have no more 
faith in sight than hearing;" 2 or of scepticism, "these things cannot be 
apprehended by the eyes or ears of man, or grasped by the mind;" 3 or of 

1 In the passages cited it is interesting to note that the phraseology is always 
ethical and not logical. For example speaking "more than is right" is what he prays 
to avoid, not "speaking more than is true." This is distinctly of a piece with Emped- 
ocles' general habit of thought. 

2 Fr. 4, io. From this and the following lines exactly opposite conclusions 
have been drawn. Burnet follows Stein in placing a comma after I. 12, but seems 
wrongly to infer that only through the senses can knowledge enter our minds. Karsten 
places a full stop after 1. 12, interpreting the passage, and in particular 1. 13, as implying 
rationalism, and distrust of the senses. Mullach accepting this punctuation, increases 
the rationalistic color by unnecessary emendation. The MSS read fi^re ri (or tip') 
6\f/iu <e\ U}V Turret tc\4ov ij kclt' olkovt^v; Mullach reads nrqbi tip' 6. 4. irta-rov ir. $ Kara 
Kotipas. Tannery translates this and the following lines, " mais ne crois pas voir plus que 
ne te montrent tes yeux, entendre au dela de ce qui est clairement enonce, et de meme 
pour toutes les voies qui s'ouvrent a la pensee, suspends la confiance en tes sens; 
pense chaque chose en tant qu'elle est manifeste." Zeller had formerly accepted this 
interpretation, but abandons it (804, 2) in favor of Stein's reading. He still attributes 
to Empedocles the view that reason is authoritative as over against the senses, but not 
on the basis of this fragment. 

The passage really asserts neither sensationalism nor rationalism. v6ei here 
means simply "apprehend" and implies no distinction of knowing from perceiving 
with the senses. We are told to apprehend each thing by the appropriate means. 

3 Fr. 2, 7. 

25 



26 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 

rationalism, "(Love) do thou behold with thy mind and do not with thine 
eyes sit dazed." 1 But a comparison of these passages with one another, 
with their entire context, and with the work of the poet as a whole shows 
that no "method" is clearly thought out and differentiated from other 
modes of inquiry. There is an evident protest against such distrust of the 
senses as Parmenides had expressed, 2 and emphasis is placed upon the truth 
obtained through them, but not such as gives warrant to Burnet's state- 
ment, "(The senses) are the only channels through which knowledge can 
enter our minds at all." 3 There is no indication of distrust of independent 
reasoning processes, save such as is quite as insistently urged for sense. 4 
[Our powers are straightened] .... "and these are things the eye of 
man hath not seen nor his ear heard nor his understanding comprehended ; 
and so thou, since thou hast thus turned aside, shalt learn no more than 
mortal wit has brought to light:" 5 

Whether the poet regards the limitation of our powers as ultimate is a 
question that has often been asked. Taken literally the passage might 
yield that meaning, yet it seems to be a rhetorical and not a scientifically 
precise statement. Bidez suggests that the poet has reference rather to the 
insufficiency of our knowledge than to our incapacity for knowledge. 6 
Yet even this statement puts the thought in an atmosphere foreign to it. 

The materialism of Empedocles does not prove anything regarding his 
theory of knowledge although empiricism is involved in modern thought 
of this type. "The blood about the heart" may have its independent 
activities and modes of apprehending the truth. 7 

1 Fr. 17, 21. 

2 Cf. Parmenides, Fr. 1, 34, ff., with Empedocles, Fr. 4, 10. 

3 Burnet, p. 238. 

4 Cf. the fragments quoted above. 

s A comparison of the exordium of Parmenides' poem with that of Empedocles, 
makes it probable that Empedocles is by implication satirizing Parmenides, especially 
in Fr. 2, 9, Fr. 4, 5 ff., and 10 ff. 

6 Bidez, "Observations sur quelques fragments d'Empedocle et de Parmenide," 
Archiv, IX, 190. Bidez treats the three fragments of Empedocles he has selected in too 
isolated a way and ascribes to Empedocles too explicit and conscious a method. It 
may be doubted that Fragment 4 favors giving exclusive attention to the study of par- 
ticular phenomena, as distinguished from the large outlines of things. Still less is 
Fragment 1 1 1 evidence that practical fruitfulness is made the test of efficiency of the 
method employed. Bidez' recognition of Parmenides' antithesis of dX^Beia and 56£a 
in Empedocles' contrast of the unchangeability of the elements to the popular view of 
creation and destruction, may well be questioned. 

7 Fr. no clearly suggests the growth of thought from within. 



GENERAL OUTLINES OF THE WORLD-STORY 

The weakness and the strength alike of Empedocles' thought can be 
comprehended only when it is seen in perspective. What is to a certain 
extent true of all philosophic systems, is especially true of his, that it has 
its focal points where his attention is concentrated with illuminating 
insight, and its shadowy portions where many inconsistencies lurk unob- 
served. The focal points of modern thought are not his, and the search- 
light of our criticism makes the inconsistencies very glaring. It is, for 
certain purposes, important to note these inconsistencies. It is also worth 
while, however, to reconstruct the picture as he saw it, bringing into clear 
relief the points that were for him central. If we do this, we shall put into 
the foreground not the problem of qualitative change, nor the nature of the 
elements, though these questions have relevancy for his thought. The 
thing that chiefly interested him was the cosmic process taken as a whole; 
the drama of world-building and world-dissolution. 

No thinker has ever comprehended the process of the universe, past, 
present, and future, into so compact and complete a picture as has he. 
The picture is a product of the imagination more than of the reasoning 
faculty, and from the point of view of a soberer age seems adventurous in 
its scope. As a poetic construction it is magnificent, and its venturesome- 
ness need not surprise us in an age when the weakness of fancy's wings 
had not yet been demonstrated in the school of experience. It was the 
power of this comprehensive scheme of things to rivet the attention, and 
to set satisfying limits to inquiry, that gave it its influence. It was not 
wholly without merit from a more scientific point of view. Our daily 
experience of a world of conflicting tendencies has its well-articulated place 
in the system, and gains meaning when considered in relation to it. Besides 
this, the notion of an ever-recurring cycle of change is easily derivable from 
an observation of such phenomena as the seasons, and the successive 
generations of man's life. Yet its chief hold lay not in its ability to explain 
the facts of experience, but in its imaginative vividness. The cosmic story, 
the story of the building of worlds, is its main theme. The world process is 
conceived not abstractly and analytically, but concretely and with vivid 
sensuousness. Many problems are considered in Empedocles' poem, but 
they all should be looked at in relation to this, his main scheme. The 
poem places them in that relation. In form it is strictly a narrative poem. 

27 



28 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 

It traces in their time succession the steps of the world process, and the 
problems taken up by him all fall into place in this plan. Even the discussion 
of the elements is not primarily an analysis of the structure of things, but of 
their origin. What do things come from, and into what will they be 
resolved ? The doctrine of four elements is an absurdity as an analysis of 
the present phenomena of sense. From the point of view of historic genesis 
it gets its only meaning and justification. 1 The same is true of many 
other doctrines put forth by Empedocles. They must all be seen in rela- 
tion to the focal point in his thought, namely, the process of world trans- 
formation, "the world-story. " 2 

In a treatment of Empedocles' philosophy like the present one, chief 
attention is necessarily given to the mooted points, and the true perspective 
of the system is lost. It is important to recognize this fact, and after dis- 
cussion to restore the disputed aspects of the system to their true 
subordination. 

The world-story as related by Empedocles may be briefly outlined. 
There are four "roots" from which come all the things that are and were 
and ever shall be. These are earth, air, fire, and water. They are con- 
stantly coming together into one, and being dissolved again into a manifold. 
This great rhythmic movement in the life of the universe, this union and 
dissolution, repeat themselves endlessly, and are brought about through 
the uniting power of Love, and the separating power of Strife. A world of 
"mortal things" is effected twice in each cycle, during the intervals when 
Love and Strife are contending for the mastery. When the four elements 
were entirely separated by Strife, there was no world; but Love entered 
into their midst and grappled with him in fierce conflict, winning over from 
him more and more of his realm. Her increasing sway is betokened by 
the uniting of separate elements in varying combinations, and by the forma- 
tion of an organic world with its infinite variety of individual existences. 
But, as she repels her enemy more and more, this organic world gives place 
to perfect union, the complete mingling of the elements into one, the 
Sphaeros, wherefrom Strife is wholly banished. But this banishment is not 
forever. In the fulness of the allotted time he re-enters, and sends a 
shudder through the "members of the god." He parts off the aether and 

i The characterization of the elements as "roots" ptfw/iaTa. Fr. 6, and as the 
"spring" Tnfyrj, Fr. 23, 10, from which things come, accords well with this position. 

Note that Fr. 17, 11. n-13, the permanence of the world is based not upon abiding 
elements whose qualities are unchanging, but upon the recurrence of an alternating 
cycle wherein they are one of the moments. 

2 We have seen reason to think that the title of the poem, irepl <f>6<re<0s, has in it this 
suggestion. 




GENERAL OUTLINES OF THE WORLD-STORY 29 

fire of the heavens from the earth, and wins back, little by little, his control. 
The present world is the battle-ground of the struggle that is taking place, a 
struggle in which he is sure to win, but just as sure, thereafter, to be forced 
to yield his sway. 1 

A number of points require consideration before the detailed descrip- 
tion of the separate stages of this process is taken up. 

1 Most of these points are well attested and so often repeated that specific references 
need not be given. The few doubtful features will be discussed in the following pages. 
The important sources are collected by Diels, Vors., 28 ff. 



THE ELEMENTS 

The theory of elements presents some problems. Empedocles employs 
often the conventional names, earth, air, fire, and water, but he also speaks 
of them as Zeus, Hera, Aidoneus, and Nestis. 1 The context shows clearly 
that Nestis is water, but the identification of the other three is very doubtful, 
and has occasioned much discussion. Zeus is described as "bright" or 
" gleaming, " Hera as the "bringer of life." Plutarch tells us that Zeus 
was the aether, by which he unquestionably means fire, that Hera was air, 
and Aidoneus earth. 2 Most modern writers have accepted this view. 
Other ancient authorities say that Hera is earth and Aidoneus air. 3 This 
has been shown by Diels to be a false tradition coming from the Homeric 
allegorists who wished to find in Homer the father of all philosophy. 4 
Homer had characterized Hades' realm as the region of murky shadows, 
£,6<f>ov rjepoevTOL^ and had specifically denied to him control over earth. 
The identification of Hera with earth in the writers mentioned, Diels 
believes, is also due to epic tradition, since the epithet applied to her by 
Empedocles, <£epeo-/?io9, is used of earth by Hesiod, and in the Homeric 
Hymn to Apollo. 6 But the identification of Hera with earth has recertly 
been approved, though on grounds independent of these ancient witnesses. 
Knatz, Thiele, and Burnet maintain, along with this identification, the novel 
position that Zeus is meant by Empedocles to represent air, and Aidoneus 
fire. 7 Zeus they urge is always associated with the bright sky in the minds 
of the Greeks, and Empedocles' use of aWrjp to characterize this element 
shows that it was the bright, pure, upper air which was meant, not the mist 
that was in early thought called arjp. Aidoneus, they suggest, is an emin- 
ently appropriate name for fire, in a land so familiar as Sicily with volcanic 
* Fr. 6. 

2 Aet., i, 3, 20. 

3 Stob., i, io, n; Her., Alleg., 24; Hippol., Re}., vii, 29; D. L., viii, 76; Athenag., 
Suppl., xxii, 95. Men. {Rhet.), Spengel, iii, 337, 4, Hera figures as air, but this 
evidence has little weight. 

4 Diels, Dox., pp. 89 ff. By further citations from Her., Alleg., 41, and Plut, 
Vit. Horn., 97, Diels has made certain the connection between the passages referring 
to Empedocles in Stobaeus and Heraclitus, and the discussions of the view of the ele- 
ments attributed to Homer. 

s II, 0, 191. 

6 Hesiod, Theogn., 693; Horn. Hymn, ii, 163. 

7 Knatz, Empedoclea, Bonn, 1891; Burnet, p. 241; Thiele, Hermes, XXXII, 68. 

3° 



THE ELEMENTS 3 1 

eruptions and hot springs. Thiele asserts that the countrymen of Empedo- 
cles undoubtedly saw in the fire mountain of Sicily the god of the under- 
world, "wie schon die Legende von Empedokles Tod beweist. " The 
validity of this last assertion is not apparent. The associations further 
connected with the name of Aidoneus are so full of gloom and shadow, 
that fire is the last element his name would naturally suggest. By Empedo- 
cles, fire is constantly thought as "gleaming," and for the most part as 
associated with the heavens. While he remarked, as Knatz points out, that 
many phenomena are occasioned by the fire that lies under the surface of 
the earth, 1 we know that in his thought this was not the proper abode 
of fire, for in the first separation the main portion of it was carried out of the 
mixture to the farthest limits of the universe. 2 The epithets wyvyiov and 
dcSrjXov used of fire, do not imply its association with Hades. Neither 
word in its primary meaning has any connection with that region or with 
its deity. Earth, it would seem, is the element most naturally associated 
with his name. 3 

As for Hera, it is true that "life-bringing" is an epithet particularly 
appropriate to earth. Yet it is often used of other things, and would aptly 
describe air, especially since, in Empedocles' view, breath is so important 
in sustaining the life of man and other living creatures. 

In extant literature before Empedocles, no definite association of Hera 
with any of the elements is found. Later she is sometimes associated with 
earth, but still more often with air, partly on the basis of a false but plausible 
etymology in Plato's Cratylus.* There is, therefore, no valid objection to 
identifying her with air, as is done by the best ancient tradition. 

In calling Zeus aWrjp ancient authorities undoubtedly mean to describe 
him as fire.s Aether came to mean fire later, 6 though it seems clear that in 
Empedocles it did not have that meaning. 7 Their confusion on this point 

1 Plut, Prim. Frig., 19, 4, p. 953 E (cf. also Fr. 52). 

2 Aet., ii, 6, 3. 

3 Too much significance should not be attached to the fact, noteworthy though it is, 
that Hades may have been originally the god of earth rather than the god of the dead . 
Welcker, Griech. Gotterl., I, 399. Note his connection as Pluto with the wealth of the 
earth, and his name Zeus Chthonius. 

4 Cratylus, 404 C; Hymn. Orph., xvi is an apostrophe to her as the goddess of air. 

s Knatz's objections to this hardly merit serious consideration. The activity 
expressed in the word {4<ns used as descriptive of aether, is in keeping with Empedo- 
cles' spirit. Fire is with him by no means "materia patiens," as Knatz calls it, but is 
highly active. Cf. p. 35. 

6 Cf. Arist., De Caelo, T 3, 302 b 4. 

7 In several passages aether and fire are mentioned as distinct. Tannery is there- 



32 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 

is enough to vitiate the value of the evidence of these writers, yet it seems 
most natural to associate Zeus with fire. His home is, to be sure, in the 
upper air, as is abundantly witnessed by the poets, but he is not identified 
with it. The home of fire is also in the high heavens. "Gleaming," 
while an epithet that might well be used of aether, is more suggestive of fire, 
and is often used to describe the fiery thunderbolt, the chief manifestation 
of Zeus's power. 

These considerations make it seem wise to adhere to the conventional 
view upon the reference of these mythological names, though a large 
balance of probability cannot be claimed in favor of so doing. 

We have noticed that the common word in Empedocles for air is aldrjp. 
arjp is, to be sure, used not once, as Burnet supposes, 1 but several times, un- 
less we have recourse to emendation. In one instance it was clearly 
used to denote the element, 2 in two others, probably in a third also, if refers 
to the ordinary atmosphere. 3 In the last passage it is distinguished from 
TtVav alOrjp by the epithet "moist." It seems impossible on the basis of 
this evidence to draw any sharp distinction between the two terms. Both 
are used for the element, and both for the atmospheric air. We may not 
doubt that arjp was the more usual word in the latter meaning, and that as 
the lower atmosphere evidently contains a large admixture of water, the 
word was naturally used for moist air. 4 

We may note in this connection the entire absence in Empedocles of 
any tendency toward the development of a technical diction. "Sea," 
"water," "rain," are used quite indiscriminately, as are "fire," "sun," 
and "Hephaestus." His. imaginative temper has not in it the logical pre- 
cision which demands and develops technical terms. 5 

It seems probable that the formulation of the doctrine of four elements 

fore in error in describing fire as "Fair lumineux, " p. 312. See Empedocles. Fr. 
71; 98; 109; and 115, 9. 

1 P. 241. 

2 Fr. 17, 18. 

3 Fr. 100, 13; Fr. 78. The doubtful fragment is 38. On its interpretation cf. 
Zeller, 758, 3. 

4 The word as used in Homer does not mean mist in the sense of implying watery 
constitution. In this respect it is like our word vapor. Its most frequent use in 
Homer is of the miraculous vapor thrown around people and things to make them 
invisible. It is also used of the lower atmosphere //., H, 288. It is not strange that in 
Empedocles the use of the term as element should co-exist with the looser meaning. 

s Zeller, p. 758, 3, enumerates the various names used by Empedocles to denote 
each of the elements. It is interesting to see his fondness for concrete terms such as 
"sun" for fire, "heaven" for air, "sea" or "rain" for water. 



THE ELEMENTS 33 

was the result partly of observation, partly of a priori reasoning. Eleatic 
criticism made necessary the abandonment of the single element of the 
early Ionians. The limitation of the number to four, earth, air, fire, and 
water, was based upon observation of ordinary nature. Three of these are 
great and obvious divisions of the material world, while fire is a striking 
process of nature inevitably supposed in antiquity to be a material sub- 
stance. 1 Burnet gives as the reason for choosing these four, that he 
thought they sufficiently accounted for the qualities presented by the world 
to the senses. 2 This can be true only in a rough way, for Empedocles is at 
no pains accurately to differentiate their qualities. Fire and aether are 
both "bright " and both "warm. "3 Still more questionable is the assertion 
made in antiquity that the abstract qualities heat and cold, rare and dense, 
or moist and dry, furnish the starting-point of the theory. 4 Aristotle tells 
us that in the actual working out of his theory, Empedocles did not treat 
the elements as four, but only as two, opposing fire to the other three. 5 
In the existing fragments and notices the antithesis of fire and water, or of 
hot and cold frequently appears, especially in dealing with physiological 
matters. This would seem to indicate the influence of other thinkers, per- 
haps of Alcmaeon and contemporary schools of medicine. 

The mythological names used for the elements have no great significance. 
Their employment seems to be merely a play of fancy. Thiele supposes 
there is present a desire to make these novel doctrines acceptable to his 
countrymen, by clothing them in mythological phraseology. At the 
same time, Thiele thinks, he conceals under this cloak a subtle satire of 
popular belief. The series of personified daemons in Fragments 122 and 
123 he interprets as ironical, as well as the deities mentioned in 128, where 
the Golden Age is described as free from the sway of the traditional gods. 
In all these instances the satirical element is extremely gentle, if present, 
while delight in the imaginative picture involved seems to be the dominant 
feeling in the poet's mind. The mythopoeic instinct is strong in him, and 

1 Gomperz, p. 186, calls attention to the fact that these three are the three repre- 
sentative states of matter: solid, liquid, and gaseous. He also points out (note to 
p. 186) the interesting fact that these four elements are found in the " Volk-Physik " not 
only of the Greeks, but of the early Hindoos. This makes against Windelband's 
view, p. 48, that the four elements were arrived at by a synthesis of preceding theories. 

2 Burnet, p. 244. 

3 Fr. 21. 

4 In Aristotle we find for the first time a genuine metaphysic of the four elements. 
A priori grounds are adduced for them, and detailed proof that there must be four and 
only four. 

s Met., A, 4, 985 a, 33. 



34 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 

extends much farther than the conscious elaboration of mythical imagery. 
Conscious personification has its part to play, but the instinct toward con- 
ceiving things in personal terms is so fundamental a part of the poet's 
mental constitution, that it pervades his whole thought, and, as already 
remarked, it was without doubt often wholly unconscious. It is often 
impossible to say how far his real conception is bound up with this tendency 
of his imagination, but it cannot be too strongly emphasized that moderns, 
accustomed to the careful differentiation of figure from fact, are inclined to 
conceive his world as too mechanical and too colorless. When he speaks 
of the Sphaeros as "rejoicing in the solitude that encircles him," 1 we may 
not assume it to be only a bit of poetic phrasing, especially since all things 
have, with him, a measure of conscious life. Love and Strife, though not 
personified in the sense of being conceived as capricious or arbitrary deities, 
have yet to his thought an ethical and emotional color connected- with 
their activities. 2 They are a step in the development of the modern notion 
of force, but only a step. 

ELEMENTS IN COMBINATION 

The most important problem of this part of our subject, is the deter- 
mining of the precise notion Empedocles had of the elements, and the way 
in which he conceived it possible by mingling them, to produce the endless 
variety of substances in the world. The two questions are inseparable. 
Aristotle evidently interpreted the four elements of Empedocles as inert 
unchangeable substances, with certain definite sense-qualities. Their 
mixture was to be thought of as mechanical mixture, "like the bricks in a 
wall." They were moved from without by external agencies, Love and 
Strife. 3 Most modern discussions explicitly or implicitly accept this inter- 
pretation^ 

The evidence at hand seems to prove, however, (a) that Empedocles is, 
as Gomperz puts it, as much a hylozoist as the Ionians; (b) that Love and 

i Fr. 28. 

2 Cf. Fr. 17, 19; Fr. 22, 6 to 10; Fr. 35, 13. 

3 Cf. Arist., De Gen. et Corr., B 6, 7,2,3 ^> 22 ff«> B7, 334 a > 2 7- 

4 Gomperz dissents from the view that the elements are inert. Burnet and 
Tannery ascribe to them a tendency to move toward their like, which is an important 
modification. Zeller, 770, believes that he adopted Parmenides' concept of inert matter. 
Windelband takes the same position. The latter essays a definition of the term 
element as employed by Empedocles, not a single phrase of which can be in strictness 
correct. It is a concept "des in sich gleichartigen, qualitativ unveranderlichen und 
nur wechselnden Bewegungszustanden u. mechanischen Theilungen zuganglichen 
Stoffs," p. 47. 




ELEMENTS IN COMBINATION 35 

Strife were not conceived by him as universal " motor causes," but as 
having the specialized function of effecting and dissolving certain com- 
binations of the elements; (c) that the notion of mixture was not denned 
by him, but was conceived with the vague indefiniteness of popular 
thought. 

There is always a tendency to interpret early thought in terms of later, 
and it is hard to realize how late the conception of matter as inert, lifeless 
"stuff," made its appearance. Modern criticism has come to recognize 
that Love and Strife are not conceived by Empedocles in purely immaterial 
terms. 1 It has been slower to see the inevitable corollary that matter is 
not divested, in his thought, of motion and intelligence. 2 Yet we are told 
in Empedocles' own words that " everything has understanding and a 
share of thought." 3 Consciousness in its higher forms is simply a more 
perfect mixture of the elements; "for it is by earth that we see earth, and by 
water, water. " 4 Motor attributes, quite as clearly as intelligence, were 
ascribed to the elements. Aristotle was greatly troubled by the fact that 
they were spoken of as moving hither and thither with no explicit mention of 
Love and Strife, which he regards as Empedocles' only motor causes. 5 

Fire performs an especially active function; to it Love hands over her 
combinations that they may be hardened; the moon and the outer vault 
of the heaven are crystallized by its agency; its motion lies at the root of the 
revolution of the heavens; the growth of plants upward is due to its upward 
tendency; the "whole-natured forms," whose genesis precedes the genesis 
of men and women, are pushed up by fire, "desiring to reach its like;" 
death is due to the departure of fire from the body. 6 Instances of this sort 
are so numerous as to preclude the possibility of regarding them as over- 
sights in the system. The elements themselves are clearly to be thought 
of as endowed with motor attributes. 

When we attempt to gain a clear notion of the function of Love and 
Strife in the processes of the world, the facts just noticed demand further 
consideration. Clearly, if so much be explained by means of the activities 
of the elements, it is impossible to regard Love and Strife as the motor 

* Cf. Zeller, 770; Burnet, p. 245; Tannery, p. 304. 

2 This is clearly recognized by Gomperz, but not by other historians of philosophy. 

3 Fr. no, 10. 

4 Fr. 109. Aristotle's suggestion, De An., A 2, 404 b, 12, that each of the elements 
is a soul, seems to be but an inference from this fragment. Cf. Zeller, 769, n. 1. 

s Phys., B, 4, 196 a, 17. 

6 On these points cf. Fr. 73; Aet., ii, 25, 15; ii, 11, 2; Plut., Strom. 10; Arist., 
De An., B 4, 415, b, 28; cf. Aet., v, 26, 4; Fr. 62; Aet., v, 24, 2. 



36 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 

forces of the world in the universal and consistent way that we have hitherto 
been inclined to suppose. Is there any attempt to differentiate and clearly 
define their function ? Observing the frequent employment of the attrac- 
tion of like for like as an operative principle in explaining phenomena, 
recent critics, Tannery, 1 Burnet, 2 and Gomperz, 3 have attempted to give 
it a definitely articulated place in the system, and to relate its operation to 
that of Love and Strife. This attraction they regard as a principle inherent 
in matter, a part of its very nature. The function of Love is to bring unlike 
things together. Strife, by breaking up the unions she effects, gives free 
play to the natural tendency of like to seek like. Thus without conflict 
or inconsistency, a place is given for all three bases of the explanation of 
motion. Attractive as is this theory, there are important considerations 
against it. First, the fact that the principle is not universal in its scope. 
Aristotle tells us that mention is found in Empedocles of many movements 
in nature with which Love and Strife had nothing to do. A large number 
of these instances cited by him and by others cannot be explained by the 
attraction of like for like. For example, the motion of fire upward is, 
according to Aristotle, sometimes treated as "natural;" 4 weight is invoked 
as a means of explaining the distribution of the elements in the first separa- 
tion from the Sphere, and of explaining the revolution of the heavens; 5 
the hardening and evaporating power of fire must also be noted; 6 capricious 
or chance motion seems to have its place also, 7 chance being employed, as 
in popular thought, uncritically, and without analysis of its meaning. 8 A 

1 P- 3°9- 

2 P. 246. 

3 P. 192 (§ 4). 

4 Arist, De. Gen. et Corr., B 6, 334 a, 4. 

s Philo, De Prov., ii, 60 p. 86. That Empedocles "gave no account of heavy 
and light," Arist., De Caelo, A 2, 309 a, 19, has no significance here, any more than it is 
valid ground for rejecting, with Burnet and Diels, Stein's Vs. 143. 

6 Philo, ibid. 

7 Arist., Phys., B 4, 196 a, 19; De Gen. et. Corr., B 6, 334 a, 1; 2>H &> IO J rf- P r - 
53; Phys., B 8, 198 b, 29. 

8 The same may be said of Empedocles' use of the term "necessity" which comes, 
however, in the vagaries of late criticism to have a variety of curious interpretations. 
It figures as a motor cause, Simpl., Phys., 465, 12; as a material cause, Them., In 
Phys. 59, 9; it is a higher "substance" which makes use of both Love and Strife, and of 
the elements, Aet., i, 26, 1; Plut., De An. Procr. 1026 B; it figures as a monad to 
which Love and Strife are reduced, they in turn in some sense embracing the elements, 
Simpl., Phys., 197, 10; cf. Zeller, 777, 1. These vagaries seem to have grown chiefly 
out of Arist., Phys., 6 1, 252 a, 5 rather than out of Fr. 115, 1, as Zeller supposes, though 
the latter passage doubtless has had its influence. 



ELEMENTS IN COMBINATION 37 

further objection to this definition of the attraction of like for like in relation 
to the system, is the absolute ignorance of ancient writers, particularly of 
Aristotle, of any such definition. It is unquestionably true that the tendency 
of like to seek like is treated as a valid principle by Empedocles in a large 
number of instances. 1 It seems probable, however, that its validity was 
taken for granted, and that no attempt was made to define the limits of its 
operation, or to correlate it with other forces. The idea has sufficient hold 
upon the popular mind at all times to occasion such an assumption, 2 and 
preceding Greek philosophy seems to have strengthened that hold. 

Aristotle's discussion of Empedocles in common with Anaxagoras, with 
reference to the use made by them of their supposed "motor causes," can 
be best understood on this hypothesis. He says; "they made almost no 

use of these [motor causes] except to a slight extent Empedocles 

makes more use of them than [Anaxagoras] but a far from adequate use. " 3 
There is a clearly recognizable and easily calculable bias in all of Aristotle's 
reasonings in such matters. His desire to find in his predecessors anti- 
cipation of his own doctrines, would lead him to seek in the doctrine of the 
attraction of like for like, recognition of the principle of natural motion of 
the elements, were anything like a universal scope assigned to its operation. 4 
The same bias, we believe, has led him to attribute to Love and Strife as 
motor forces, a far larger scope .than Empedocles intended, censuring as 
mere lapses the many exceptions to their operation. 5 Subsequent writers, 
ancient and modern, have followed him upon this point, instead of seeking 
light in Empedocles' own fragments. We have several instances where their 
function is referred to in general terms by Empedocles, 6 and in no one of 
them is any suggestion found of universal motor activity, but only mingling 
and separation of what has been mingled. 7 

1 It should be noted that in one instance exactly the opposite principle, the attrac- 
tion of unlikes, is invoked. Animals with most heat are said to seek the water, avoiding 
the excessive heat. Arist, De Resp., 14, 477 a, 32; Theophr., De Cans. Plant., 
i, 2i, 5 (yet note Aet., v, 19, 5). 

As instances of the employment of the principle note Fr. 90; Fr. no, 9; Fr. 62, 6. 

2 Arist. Eud., Eth., H 1, 1235 a, 9; Plato, Lys., 214 B. 

3 Met. A 4, 985 a, 17. 

4 In the Physics he deplores the absence of such a principle in Empedocles. 

s The difficulties into which Aristotle is led by the attempt to carry out this inter- 
pretation are very great. In one passage he gives vent to quite a remarkable outburst 
of impatience of Empedocles' indefiniteness : eSei odu f) 8iopl<ra<rdai f) virodiadcu 7} dwo- 
5e?£cu, ij d.Kpij3u)s $ /j.a\a.K&s f) a/j.Qs y4 ttws, De Gen. et Corr., B 6, ^^ b, 24. 

6 Fr. 17, 7; Fr. 20; Fr. 21, 7; Fr. 22. 

7 We cannot, unfortunately, ignore their context sufficiently to see support for this 



38 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPODOCLES 

The primary idea suggested by these passages seems to be the fusing 
and transforming process which the elements undergo in combination, 
under certain conditions. If this be true, it would apply chiefly but not 
exclusively to organic combinations. We can hardly doubt that the idea of 
Love and Strife was formulated primarily as a result of the study of organic 
processes. We have no instance where their operation is mentioned save 
in the formation and dissolution of organic substances, and of the Sphaeros, 
which is really also an organic substance. The term "made like" so often 
used of the operation of Love is intended as a description of this transform- 
ing agency. Of a "motor cause" per se Empedocles felt the need as little 
as Anaximander. He was quite content to explain many forms of spatia 
motion on the lines his predecessors had followed, 1 and in the main outlines 
of the formation of the world, as well as many other classes of phenomena, 
the substitution of four elements for one met sufficiently for his purposes 
the Eleatic criticism of qualitative change as employed in early systems. 
In the realm of organic life something more seemed to be needed. The con- 
stituent substances were so obviously transformed, and did not manifest 
at all the qualities of their constituents. Love and Strife were invoked as 
a means of effecting these combinations and dissolving them. That their 
operation was confined to organic combinations is not probable, 2 but organic 
combinations furnish the most obvious examples of the power of Love to 
make "one out of many." 3 

position, as does Gomperz, in the words of Aristotle, Be Gen. et Corr., B 6, 334 a, 8: 
dXXci tivos Kivqvews ravra airta. Gomperz, note to p. 197. 

1 There is no intention of denying that Love or Strife may sometimes cause spatial 
motion. The poet surely made no technical limitation or definition of their function 
But the primary root and meaning of his conception seems to be the one here stated. 

2 No sharp line was drawn between organic and inorganic by Empedocles. 

3 The corrupt fragment 93 probably gave an instance of affinity in mixture. A few 
points may be noted regarding the text. The MSS read: (Suo-aip 8e yXavKijs kpokov 
Kara/xlo-yeTou [&ktIs], Of the many emendations, Karsten's is the best. £. 5. yXavKy 
kokkov k. avdos. Diels supposes that fitiacros is a color instead of a kind of cloth, 
as is usually held. He reads j8. 5. y\avnris kokkos k. d/cr^s, "mit der Byssosfarbe aber 
wird die Beere des blauen Holunders gemischt." Against this interpretation the 
following considerations may be urged: 

1. Mixing of colors would not be an apt illustration of Plutarch's thought. 

2. Plutarch would hardly use kSkkos alone, as he does, for the kermesberry or its 
dye, if he intended to quote immediately a line of Empedocles containing the word 
with aKTTjs meaning elderberry. 

3. The union formed between the dye and the cloth would be a more apt illustra- 
tion of the affinity of certain substances than would the mixing of colors. Cf. Lucr., 
vi, 1073, for a similar illustration and Plato, Rep., 429 D. 

Plutarch, we may suggest, is not giving an additional instance of kindred sub- 



MIXTURE 39 



MIXTURE 



It is quite clear that no analysis was made of the notion of mixture as 
here employed. Aristotle, as we have noticed, criticizes the theory on the 
supposition that mechanical mixture is meant. But the use of such 
phrases concerning the elements as, "being made one," "coming together 
into one," "being born through Strife," "wasting away into one another," 
show a recognition of the fact that a real transformation takes place in the 
process of combination. 1 Indeed we find explicit mention of the great change 
wrought in the appearance of things by mixture. 2 On the other hand it is 
altogether a mistake to ascribe to him an anticipation of the notion of 
chemical mixture. Such a notion is impossible without a different con- 
ception of the elements. With Aristotle they must be regarded as changing, 
or be denned in terms other than sense qualities as in modern chemistry, 
or a distinction between primary and secondary qualities must be drawn 
as in ancient atomism, 3 before the term "chemical mixture" can have any 
meaning. We have not the slightest ground for supposing that Empedocles 
reached any clearer conception of mixture than that employed in the com- 
mon language of his own day. He seems to have used the altogether unde- 
fined idea of ordinary experience. When he wishes to explain his position 
he does so, not by analysis or precise definition, but simply by an appeal 
to a familiar instance of mixture wherein his hearers can readily see the 
transformation of qualities that is effected. 4 To say that his philosophy 
contained the germ of the conception of chemical mixture, or of mechanical 
mixture, is just as true and just as false as to say the same of ordinary 
thought. 5 But it must be apparent that his theory would become untenable 
so soon as either conception of mixture was clearly thought out and adopted. 
For it would be impossible to think clearly of mixture as mere juxtaposition 
of particles, and still believe that four elements furnish qualities enough to 

stances, but is supplementing the second instance given. We would keep Karsten's 
reading, retaining MSS olktIs in place of Avdos, a doubtful but not impossible metaphor, 
and translate, with the Plutarchean context, as follows: "Carbonate of soda, when 
mixed in, seems to draw the dye into the material 'and the brilliance of the scarlet dye 
is mingled thoroughly with the gray cloth,' as Empedocles says." 

1 For such phrases see Fr. 22, 5 and 9; Fr. 26, 2, 7 and 10. 

2 Fr. 21, 14. 

3 Fr. 21 cannot be regarded as a basis for supposing that this distinction was 
drawn by Empedocles, neither is there elsewhere conclusive evidence for it. 

4 Fr. 23. 

s Zeller seems inclined to attribute to him the thought, if not the language, of me- 
chanical mixture; cf. Zeller, p. 765, 3. 



40 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 

account for the infinite variety of nature. On the other hand, if we assume 
that mixture means something more, if we assume that a real transformation 
is effected by combination, it must immediately be seen that the qualities 
of the elements are not permanent. We must, to retain the permanency of 
the elements, either define them in terms other than sense qualities, or as a 
makeshift distinguish between primary and secondary qualities. Neither 
was done by Empedocles. 1 The apparent tenability of his position rests 
wholly upon the ill-defined and even shifting character of the concepts 
employed. He gets the advantages of both kinds of mixture without their 
difficulties. 2 

Aristotle recognizes the inconsistency of the notion of mechanical mix- 
ture, which he ascribes to Empedocles, with the " union into one. " Exter- 
nal as is his mode of reviewing the matter, it is nearer the truth than many 
modern discussions. 3 

In two fragments preserved to us 4 there is specific mention of the 
quantities of the various constituents employed in the formation, in the one 
case of bone, in the other of flesh and blood. The conclusion has been 
drawn that Empedocles anticipated the principle of proportional combina- 
tion of modern chemistry. 5 But there is no evidence that the principle 
was generalized, and the fact that a little more or less is, in the case of flesh 
and blood, a matter of indifference, hardly gives room for such a generaliza- 
tion. Aristotle, indeed, censures his failure to universalize the principle. 6 

1 It is altogether probable that he would have been wholly unprepared for the 
question in what the self-identity of the elements consists. 

2 Post-Aristotelian evidence, as we should expect, follows Aristotle in ascribing to 
Empedocles the notion of mechanical mixture. It is evident that this is a correct logical 
conclusion from one aspect of his thought. The important thing, however, is the fact 
that he himself did not draw the conclusion. Galen in Hipp, de Nat. Horn., A 2 
(Kiihn, XV, 32) ascribes the conclusion to him. It is implied Aet, i, 17, 3; i, 13, 1, 
and elsewhere. Plato, Laws, x, 889 B ff., attributes to an indefinite "they," probably 
Sophists of his own day who advocated Empedoclean physics, a position more mechani- 
cal than Empedocles' own thought as here interpreted. 

3 Gen. et Corr., A 1, 315 a, 5. It must be clear that in denying to Empedocles the 
idea of mechanical mixture we by no means ascribe to him the Aristotelian notion of 
qualitative change. Dr. Heidel has clearly shown that none of the pre-Socratics held 
this doctrine, Archiv, XIX, 333. But it seems hardly true that these two alternatives 
exhaust the possibilities, as Dr. Heidel maintains they do. The real question at issue 
is whether the popular notion of mixture, undefined as it is, would be likely to find a 
place in philosophic thought at this time. 

4 Fr. 96 and 98. 

5 Gomperz, p. 188. 

6 Met., A 10, 993 a, 19. 



MIXTURE 41 

The simple proportions suggested in both of these instances, as well as in 
the case of the sinews, an additional instance preserved to us by the Doxog- 
raphers, 1 make it unlikely that the proportions used are thought of as 
constituting a complete basis of qualitative differences. The phrase 
employed by Aristotle in stating Empedocles' view, Aoyos tt}s /At^ecos, 
is probably responsible for the tendency of modern thinkers to attach undue 
significance to Empedocles' suggestions in this direction. But the phrase 
can hardly have been used by Empedocles, and Aristotle is keenly alive to 
the incompleteness of Empedocles' thought at this point. In the simple 
concrete way in which Empedocles employed the principle, it would be 
used by ordinary men as soon as any of the arts appear, and would naturally 
go with any pluralistic theory of the elements. 

There is no evidence that everything was thought to contain all of the 
elements. This notion seems to have originated with Anaxagoras. The 
description of bone omits air, though Simplicius unjustifiably attempts to 
interpret the fragment so as to include it, and Theophrastus inadvertently 
assumes all four elements to be present. 2 The sinews, too, contain no 
air; 3 the heavens are said to be composed only of fire and air. 4 It has been 
urged that universal mixture is the only possible basis for interaction, since 
only like can act on like. But while likeness is the general basis of attraction 
and of perception with Empedocles, it is not a necessary condition of all 
forms of interaction. The hardening power of fire is an operation exerted 
upon other elements. Symmetry of pores, a condition of some forms of 
interaction, does not imply like constituents. Aristotle affirms that 
Democritus stood alone among early thinkers in making likeness the basis 
of interaction. 5 It is strange in the face of these facts that by so careful a 
student as Beare the law of perception should be made "a deduction from 
the metaphysical theory that 'like affects like.'" 6 

1 Aet, v, 22, 1. 

2 Fr. 96; Simpl., De An., 68, 5; Theophr., De Sens. 23; Aet., v 22, 1; Zeller, 
p. 762. 

3 Aet., loc. cit. 

4 Galen in Hipp. Nat. Horn., A 2 (Kiihn, XV, 32), does not imply the presence of 
each of the elements in everything, but simply explains what mixture means. 

5 Arist, De Gen. et Corr., A 7, 323 b, 10. 

6 Beare, p. 98, interprets to this effect Theophrastus, De Sens., 2: 'E/xiredoKXijs 8e 
ireipaTai Kai rafrras avdyeiv els tt\v dfioidTrjTa. By supplying rots aiad-rjaeis with ratjras 
instead of ras Kara jxipos aladri<xeLS, the impression is given that Beare takes the 
passage to mean that the senses as well as other phenomena were explained on the 
principle of likeness; but the context shows the meaning to be that Empedocles did 
not content himself with the general proposition, " like perceives like," but discussed 
the special senses individually. 



42 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 

Aristotle's assertion that Empedocles reduces the four elements to two, 
opposing fire to the rest, 1 probably does not imply any departure from the 
doctrine that the elements were unchangeable. Empedocles seems to have 
ascribed to fire an especially active function, as already noted, and in his 
explanations of physical and biological phenomena, he seems often to 
follow the views of others without adequate correlation with his own fun- 
damental doctrines. 2 

The theories just discussed, the theory of four elements, and of their 
combination in various ways to form phenomena, are Empedocles' attempt 
to solve the problem of qualitative change, and to meet the Eleatic criticism 
of early hylozoistic theories. He cannot be said to have met this criticism 
more than superficially. Keeping, as he does, the qualitative conception 
of element, and at the same time asserting the permanent identity of the 
elements amid their obvious transformations, he adopts a position very 
close to common sense, but lacking in philosophical thoroughness com- 
pared with contemporary and preceding thought. Its closeness to obvious 
aspects of experience, and its rough availability for the comprehension and 
organization of that experience, are evident. To these facts are due its long 
survival in common thought, though not in philosophy, and its partial 
formulation in " folk-physics" long before Empedocles. 3 Parmenides 
would have thrown experience overboard before philosophically accepting 
such a position. Anaxagoras or Leucippus w r ould certainly, indeed did, 
accept views very paradoxical to common sense in preference. 4 

The suggestion is made by Tannery and Gomperz that Empedocles' 
experience in practical medicine helped to develop in him the notion that 
out of varying combinations of a few r elements the infinite variety of things 
in the world could be produced. This seems not improbable and accords 
well with the view of the theory that has just been stated. 5 

LOVE AND STRIFE 

In determining Empedocles' conception of the elements and of mixture, 
the function assigned Love and Strife has necessarily received some con- 
sideration. A few further points regarding the way in which they are 

1 De Gen. et Corr., B 3, 330 b, 19; Met., A 4, 985 a, 33. 

2 Cf., for example, p. 83. 3 Cf. Gomperz, note to p. 186. 

4 The theory hardly seems to deserve the full measure of praise accorded it by 
Gomperz: "in seiner StofBehre stehen wir mitten in modernen Chemie. " The 
modern limitation of the number of the elements would not possess philosophic worth 
were it based on a definition of element in terms of immediate sense qualities. 

s It seems quite clear that in his theory of vision, and of sensation in general, he 
was influenced by the physician Alcmaeon. Diels, Emp. 11. Gorg., loc. cit.; Theophr., 
De Sensu, §§ 25, 26. 



LOVE AND STRIFE 43 

conceived demand notice. We have remarked that material attributes 
are ascribed to them. It is not true, however, as asserted by Burnet and 
Tannery, that they are elements "just like the other four." 1 They are 
set apart as having unique functions, and they are not enumerated among 
the constituents of individual things such as flesh and bone, as are earth, air, 
fire, and water. It is less erroneous to conceive them as abstract forces 
than as mere elements, for their active functions are their important func- 
tions. They might possibly be described as notions of immaterial force in 
the process of making. It is not unlikely that in the poet's own thought 
their aspect changed somewhat, that in certain connections they were 
personalized, coming quite close to the deities of popular mythology, 2 
that at other times they were conceived somewhat more abstractly. 3 Their 
fluctuations were not unlike those of the popular conceptions of Love and 
Strife as a part of daily life. For the names Love and Strife are not a play 
of fancy. They are two important elements of experience universalized. 
The poet himself tells us that Love is the same as she that is implanted in the 
human frame, who is the source of the kindly feeling of men toward one 
another. 4 It is possible to conceive that he is reducing the experiences of 
friendship and kindliness, with their opposites, to the level of mere mechan- 
ical attraction and repulsion, instead of conceiving the processes of all 
nature after the analogy of the conscious experiences to which he gives these 
names. But mechanical conceptions of nature were not yet familiar enough 
so that the poet, if he held them, would venture to employ figurative phra- 
seology and expect to be understood. His conception must be an inter- 
mediate one, wherein the feat of abstraction was not yet fully accomplished. 
He himself, probably, could not have differentiated fact from fancy in his 
verses. 5 

Aristotle questioned, as have many since him, why two forces instead of 
one were put forward by Empedocles. The motive seems to be at bottom 

1 Tannery, p. 306, is more thoroughgoing in his interpretation than Burnet. He 
compares Love to the luminiferous ether of modern science, and holds that the pores of 
all things are filled with this subtle form of matter. 

2 Fr. 30; Fr. 35. It is impossible in these passages, to tell how much is con- 
scious poetic imagery. 

3 So, perhaps, in Fr. 17, 7 and 8; Fr. 96, 4. 

4 Fr. 17, 22. 

s It is probable that technical phraseology develops itself just so soon as precision 
of thought demands it. Empedocles would not have employed the poetic form had he 
felt the need of logical coherence and clear presentation that is often ascribed to him. 
For the poetic form is not the invariable tradition of philosophy, and Empedocles was 
the last Greek philosopher of importance who emploved it. 



44 



ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 



the same as in the positing of several elements instead of one. It may be 
regarded as fundamental to Empedocles' thought, that from a unity diversity 
of result cannot come without some determining cause. A single principle 
the Eleatics made to appear as incapable of dealing with the changes in 
the world as with its qualitative variety. Attraction and repulsion, good 
and evil, are both facts demanding explanation, and require a twofold 
principle. 1 



THE WORLD-CYCLE 

In the cosmic process as a whole, as well as in the individual phenomena 
of composition and dissolution, the doctrine of four elements united and 
separated through Love and Strife has its integral place. As already 
described, the world process is a cycle of change ever repeating itself. 
Love and Strife in alternation gain control over the world by a prolonged 
struggle. Love, during her period of mastery, unites all things into one, 
the Sphaeros ; Strife separates them into the four elements. This alterna- 
tion of control of Love and Strife lies in the fundamental nature of things. 
It is decreed by necessity, sworn by "broad oaths." Neither when Strife 
is in full control, nor when Love has the helm, is there an organic world, 
but only in the intervals when the two are contending for the mastery. 2 
The wonderful imaginative picture of this process is clear enough in its 
main outlines, save in two important points. In what portion of the cycle 
are we living, and where does Empedocles begin his account of the building 
of the world ? 

Most modern writers have divided each cycle into four periods, the 
present world being intermediate between the separated elements and the 
Sphaeros. 3 Dummler, and later Burnet, have urged that this world is 
rather the epoch immediately following the Sphaeros. 4 Tannery finds 

1 Aristotle in one passage treats Love and Strife as final causes. Met., A 4, 984 b, 
32. There is this degree of basis for his interpretation, that Love is always regarded 
as beneficent, Strife as baneful. This again is an additional reason for not regarding 
them as mechanical in their mode of operation. 

2 Simplicius De Caelo, 310, 13, tells us that the word k6<t^os was used for the 
present world. His statement hardly gives warrant for Zeller's conclusion, 783, 1, 
that Empedocles made explicit distinction between Kda-fws and acpalpos. k6<thos is 
used of the Sphaeros, Fr. 26, 5. 

3 So Zeller, Rohde, Windelband, and apparently Diels. 

4 Dummler, Akademika; Burnet, p. 249. Somewhat later the same view was 
put forth independently by Doring, but without detailed defense, Zeitschr. j. Phil, CV, 
29. Wellman takes the same view, Pauly, Realencyc. But none of the advocates 
of this position have discussed the evidence at all fully. 



THE WORLD-CYCLE 45 

no place for four periods. 1 An organic world cannot, he thinks, be formed 
when Strife is on the increase. Neither can his complete dominance be a 
period of rest. It must be characterized by turbulent movement. A 
similar view has recently been maintained by von Arnim. 2 The evidence 
at hand seems to vindicate the position of Dummler and Burnet. Post- 
poning for a moment the question of the place in the cycle of the present 
world, we may notice the evidence in favor of two periods of generation. 

In Fragment 17 of Empedocles, a statement is found which, on its 
most obvious interpretation at least, suggests that there are two ways in 
which a world of mortal existences is generated, " There is a twofold genesis 
and a twofold destruction of mortal things." These words in isolation 
might be taken, as they repeatedly have been taken, to refer to the individual 
births and deaths occurring in the present world. 3 But the entire context 
supports the supposition that cycles of transformation of the world as a 
whole are referred to. Aristotle supports the view that a world is twice 
generated in each cycle. " Empedocles says that the world is in a similar 
condition now, in the period of Strife, to its former state in the period of 
Love. " 4 Elsewhere two periods of motion are referred to with explicitness. 5 
A significant allusion is found in Theophrastus which has been overlooked 
in this connection. As an objection to Empedocles' theory of sensation 
through effluences we are told that "it would follow therefrom that in the 
period of Love there could be no sensation at all, or less [than now] because 
then the process of bringing together is taking place and not that of dissipa- 
tion. " 6 The evidence of the Aristotelian commentators is, it must be 

1 Tannery, p. 308. 

2 The latter has considered the historical evidence more adequately, but his con- 
viction seems to be based quite as much as that of Tannery on a priori grounds; 
Festschr. /. Gomperz, Wien 1902. 

Other hypotheses that have been put forth are either too ill founded to make 
refutation necessary, or have been so successfully criticized by Zeller, that they may be 
passed over. To the latter class belongs Karsten's view that the cycle is not a time 
cycle, a view which deserves notice because it has the authority of the ancient neo- 
Platonic commentators upon Aristotle, notably Simplicius. 

3 This view is taken by von Arnim, Stein, Karsten and others. Cf. Zeller's criti- 
cism, p. 756, 2. 

4 De Gen. et Corr., B 6, 334 a, 5. Von Arnim, p. 19, dwells upon the obscurity of 
this passage. I venture to believe that it seems obscure only because it is relentlessly 
explicit and will not lend itself to forced interpretation. The thought, though con- 
densed, is clear. How, Aristotle asks, if Love and Strife are opposites, can the world 
now, in the period of Strife, be like the world of the preceding period of Love ? 

s See the passage quoted, p. 54. 

6 Theophr., De Sens., § 20: avfjL^aivei dt kclI iirl rijs <f>t\las 6\ws firj elvai afodyaiv 



46 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 

admitted, decidedly against the view that an organic world is twice 
generated in each cycle. They speak always of but two periods, the world 
of Love and the world of Strife, the former being the Sphaeros, and the 
latter the present world. 1 Sometimes Love is regarded as alone the cause 
of the former, Strife of the latter, but Simplicius admits that both seem to 
have some efficacy in both periods. 2 There is in these writers, however, an 
evident attempt to translate Empedocles' cycle into terms of the neo-Platonic 
antithesis between the " sensible and intelligible world." The time form 
of presentation is attributed to a pedagogical motive analogous to the 
geometer's method of constructing the figure which he explains. 3 Little 
weight should therefore be given to their statements, over against the 
important testimony from Empedocles himself, and from Aristotle and 
Theophrastus. 

Against this testimony is urged the difficulty of conceiving a world as 
generated through the power of Strife. "Toute combinaison nouvelle 
que pourrait former le hasard entre les elements isoles serait necessaire- 
ment instable." 4 This argument would be valid were we to suppose 
that Love withdrew so soon as Strife commenced his work. But we have 
every reason to believe that the world is for centuries the battle-ground of 
their contention for the mastery. It might be valid, again, were we to 
conceive Love and Strife strictly as mechanical forces, operating according 
to law at all points in the world, the one with increasing, the other with 
decreasing force. In this case we should suppose that Love made no local 
and temporary advances during this period, but simply relinquished her 
hold gradually. But by Empedocles their relation was conceived rather 
after the analogy of the battlefield, wherein one point after another is lost 
for a considerable time to the enemy, and then regained, perhaps only to 
be lost again. s In this period every combination is, to be sure, ultimately 
unstable. But not more so than all life as viewed by many a Greek thinker 
besides Empedocles. Every organic combination is the work of Love, 

fj iJTTov 5td to avyKplveadai Tore /cat /jltj airoppeiv. The statement made Dox., ii, 4, 8, 
E. [07/trt] top KOff/xov <pdeipe<r6ai Kara tt\v avTeTriKpareiav tov vukovs ical tt)s <pi\ias, favors 
two worlds. Sturz adds yiveadai kclI before (pdeipeadai, an improbable emendation, 
since the other views mentioned in the immediate contest consider only the destruction 
and not the generation of the world. 

1 Simpl., Phys., 31, 18 ff., 31 ff.; De Caelo, 528, 29; 294, 10. 

2 Simpl., De Caelo, 528, 29; Phys., 31, 32, and 18. 

3 Simpl., De Caelo, 305, 20; cf. 304, 3; Phys., 34, 8; De Caelo, 530, 16 and 24. 

4 Tannery, p. 308. 

s Cf. Fr. 59, 1; Arist., Gen. et Corr., A 1, 315 a, 16. 



THE WORLD-CYCLE 47 

though death and dissolution through Strife are its inevitable destiny. In a 
period of contention that lasts no doubt for thousands of years, we could 
hardly expect to be able to see at a given moment in either world, which of 
the two forces was gaining the upper hand. Even if Strife increased at a 
given time, it might be but a local and temporary encroachment. Viewed 
in this way, we might quite well have a world similar in many features to 
the present one, twice during each cycle, and need not attempt to force 
the two passages cited from their obvious and natural interpretation. 

In which of these worlds are we living? There is no problem of 
Empedocles' philosophy in reference to which greater confusion has pre- 
vailed than this. Aristotle certainly thought that the present world was 
the period of Strife, that is, the period beginning with the Sphaeros and 
ending with the separated elements. We have quoted his remark that the 
world according to Empedocles is in a similar state now in the period of 
Strife to its former state in the period of Love, a/xa Sk /cat t6v koo-jxov 
o/xotojs €X av <f>r)(Tiv 67rt re tov Net/cous vvv /cat 7r/oorepov liri rrjs c/nAxas, 1 
A second passage reads, "it is not reasonable that the world should originate 
from elements that are separated and in motion. For this reason Empedo- 
cles omits to describe the generation of the world in the period of Love." 
S16 /cat E. 7rapaA.et7rct rrjv €7rt rrjs c/uAot^tos yevecriv. 2 Since Empedocles 
could hardly have omitted an account of the present world, we must be 
living in the period of Strife. 

Theophrastus' evidence is quite as explicit as that of Aristotle. The 
world €7rt rrjs <f>tXia<s is opposed to the present world. 3 

The neo-Platonic commentators on Aristotle, while they transmit no 
evidence in favor of a mortal world being twice generated in each cycle, give 
some slight indications that the present is the world wherein Strife is gaining 
ground. This evidence is but indirect. It is evident that no weight can 
be attached to their repeated reference to this as the world of Strife, for 
that means with them only that it is not the Sphaeros. 4 But they preserve 
suggestions from Aristotle and from Empedocles' poem, that this or that 
phenomenon belongs to a time when Strife is just beginning to separate 
the Sphaeros, or, on the other hand, belongs to the stage when Love is 

1 Arist., De Gen. et Corr., B 6, 334 a, 5. 

2 De Caelo, T 2, 301 a, 14. The phrase, "in motion." has reference to the view 
of Anaxagoras just considered by Aristotle. 

3 De Sens., 20, quoted above. 

4Simpl., De Caelo, 293, 20; 528, 11. The order of treatment of Empedocles 
seems here to be observed. Everything is gathered into the Sphaeros, then separated 
out again. Cf. also Simpl., De Caelo, 590, 19. 



48 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 

gaining ground. Usually these remarks add little to the direct testimony of 
Aristotle, but they are in the main consistent with it. Often almost inex- 
tricable confusion is introduced into the problems discussed by the attempt 
to reconcile Empedocles' verses and Aristotle's notices with their conception 
of a single world of generation. The evidence of Philoponus, for example, 
seems at first sight to be in favor of attributing the generation of animals out 
of separate members to the period of Strife, since he describes the separate 
members as being produced iv rfj rrpwrr) SiaK/aurct tov 3,<f>acpov. But 
we find that the putting together of the members is ascribed to a time after 
everything had been separated, Travroiv oWpiflc'vTwv. These statements 
are not inconsistent. The world has advanced farther when the members 
are put together than when they were created. 1 The separation of all 
things, to Philoponus' thought, does not mean the complete parting of the 
elements, but the integrating of a world. These separate parts of animals 
were mingled in the Sphaeros, and are now separated out. <*>? Srj firj fxovov 
twv (TTOt^etwv iv dXAryAots /xe/xty/nevoov iv rw S<£cu'/o<i> aAAa /cat roiv p.opiu>v rdv 
£okoi/. 

Simplicius makes a more serious attempt than Philoponus to reconcile 
Aristotle and Empedocles with his preconceived notions. He recognizes 
that the separate members were created when Love was beginning to get 
the upper hand, Kara rr]v rrjs cpiXtas apxw. He sees too that the phrase 
€7rt t^s cpiXoTrjTos includes not only the time when Love is in control, but 
the period leading up to it. cVt ttjs <pt\6rrjTo<s .... ovk ws ezriK/oa- 
Tovarjs 77877 rrjs <f>i\La<s, dAA' d>? /xcAAovctt;? €7riK/oaTc?v. 2 Yet he also uses the 
expression "the world of Strife" to include all organic creation and his 
view is in general subject to the neo-Platonic limitations. He is in the 
greatest difficulty in the attempt to interpret the passages of Aristotle, 
wherein Empedocles is said to have omitted to describe the generation of a 
world in the period of Love. The statement is referred to the Sphaeros 
and is explained by supplying 8uxOe<riv tG>v otoixciW instead of yevtcnv 
in the sentence ow kou E. Trapaktiiru rrjv i-n-l tt}? <f>i\oTr)TOs (Siddccriv 
twv o-ToixetWX- 5 Equally great are the difficulties of Alexander in the 
interpretation of the statement that the world is in a similar condition now 
in the period of Strife to its former state in the period of Love. 4 As a final 

1 Philop., Phys., 314, 8; Zeller, 793, 3, rejects Philoponus' evidence on the score of 
inconsistency. 

2 Simpl., De Caelo, 587, 24. With him as with Philoponus the isolated members 
are the work of Strife, not of Love, contrary to the view of Alexander. Cf. 586, 25, 
587, 18. 

3 Simpl., De Caelo, 590, 24. 

+ Ap. Philop., De Gen. et Corr., 268, 1. Philoponus himself simply takes the pas- 



THE WORLD-CYCLE 49 

possible interpretation he suggests, r/ 6/aoiws, cprjat, *ooyxos nar avrov kern 

KCU KLV&TOLl i-TTL TC TOV VCIKOVS VVV KCLL €7Tt TTj^ <£lA«XS TTpOTCpOV, CV Sk TOIS UCTatjv 

SiaXeififxaa-L twv vtt j £k€lv(dv ywofxivoiv KLvrjaewv, 7rp6repov re ore e* tov vci'kovs 
i-rrtKpaTrjcrev y cpiXta kcu vvv ore i< rfjs <pt.\ias to vcikos, Kooyxo? icnv aKXrjv 
Ttva KLVOvp-evos Ktvrjaiv kcu ov^ a? 17 <^>iA.ia kcu to v&kos klvovctlv. Here, curiously 
enough, there is recognized the possibility of supposing two worlds in the 
intervals between the "period of Love" and the "period of Strife," but 
neither of these can be the present world. The present world is still the 
neo-Platonic world in direct antithesis to the Sphaeros, while the intervening 
worlds are conceived as under some other force in place of Love and Strife. 1 
The evidence of Aristotle, Theophrastus, and the neo-Platonists, must be 
regarded, therefore, as on the whole favorable to the view that the present 
is the period of Strife. Many of Empedocles' own doctrines as gathered 
from his verses or from later writers, lead directly to the same conclusion. 
We may notice particularly the following points : (a) The accounts of the 
formation of the heavens describe the separation of the large masses of air, 
water, etc., out of a mixture, described in one passage as "the first mixture 
of the elements. " 2 (b) The generation of men and women as described in 
Fragment 62, from primitive forms with undifferentiated members, naturally 
fits into an era of advancing Strife. Articulation or differentiation of organs 
is a natural result of his increasing power. 3 That these primitive forms are 
sent up by the separating of fire, which desires to reach its like, is significant 
in this connection. 4 The formation of animals from members produced 
in isolation and afterward united naturally fits in, on the other hand, with 
the period of Love, and is by ancient writers uniformly referred to that 
epoch. The fact that later writers in referring to the formation of animals 
from isolated members, repeatedly state that they belonged to the period 
of Love, whereas in the numerous details regarding phenomena certainly 

sage as does Zeller. Cf. p. 50. Alexander rightly rejects this interpretation on the 
ground that the criticism of Aristotle is thereby made pointless. 

1 Similar difficulties and forced interpretations arise in the attempt to explain 
Aristotle's reference, De Caelo, B 13, 295 a, 29, to a time when the elements -were 
completely separated (Simpl., 528, 1). Simplicius finally concludes that Aristotle has 
been misled by Empedocles' mythical form of presentation, Simpl., 530, 16. 

2 Plut, Strom., 10; Philo., De Prov., ii, 60; Aet. ii, 6, 3. 

3 Note that Simplicius in commenting upon the word oi\o<pv4s uses the phrase 
fi-qTru yevofxtpris iv atfry Siaicpiffews. It might be urged that greater differentiation implies 
more organic union and a greater exercise of the functions of <f>i\La. This is true, 
but not on its more obvious side, the side which underlies Empedocles' thought in this 
connection. 

4 Cf. on this point Dummler, Ak. } 217 ff. 



50 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 

belonging to our world, the period is never specified, is a slight additional 
indication that the period of Love is not the present period, (c) Trees, 
which are the first living beings to be formed in the present world, are 
described as having an exceptionally symmetrical mingling of the elements. 1 
(d) There are indications that the present world is looked upon as a degen- 
erating rather than an advancing world. That this is the temper of the 
Purifications is universally admitted. To those who do not admit any 
inference from the religious to the physical teaching of Empedocles, 2 we 
may mention the remark that the men of today are infants compared with 
those of the past. The suggestion of Fragment 78 that there was a time 
when a more perfect mixture of the air furnished better conditions for the 
growth of plants, may possibly have some force in the same direction. 

In spite of this accumulation of evidence nearly all writers have supposed 
the present to be the world of Love. In this they have usually followed 
Zeller, who evades the consequences of Aristotle's testimony. To the 
phrase iirl rrjs cptXias (or <f>t\oTr)Tos), in Aristotle, he gives three distinct 
meanings, (a) In the first of the two passages cited above, concerning the 
resemblance of the present world to the former world in the period of Love, 
he interprets the phrase i-irl Trjs <£iAias as referring to the Sphaeros. The 
context in Aristotle shows it to be, however, the period leading up to the 
Sphaeros. The point of Aristotle's criticism is that the function of Empe- 
docles' " motor causes" are not clearly differentiated, for if they were, the 
worlds under opposing forces could not be treated as similar, (b) Several 
times the phrase is by him taken in its rightful meaning as the period lead- 
ing up to the Sphaeros. The second of the passages quoted above, to the 
effect that Empedocles omitted the account of the period of Love, is once 
correctly interpreted in accordance with this usage. Its meaning he explains 
in these words: "womit gemeint sein wird dass er diejenige Weltbildung zu 
der die <$>i\ia den ersten Anstoss gab, und die mit der vollkommenen 
Vereinigung der Elemente im Sphaeros endete, nicht dargestellt hatte. " 3 
(c) Elsewhere this same statement of Aristotle is cited as an instance of the 
use of the phrase with reference to the period of advancing Strife, "die der 
gegenwartigen gegeniiberstehende Weltperiode, " and the passage is cited 

1 Aet., v, 26, 4; Pseudo-Arist, De Plant., A 2, 817 b, 35, we are told, to. tpvra 
exovcTL ytveatv kv k6<t/j.({} 7)WaTT(afj.£vi() ical ov reXei'y /caret tt}v avp.ir\rip<j)<Ti.v avrov, tcivttjs 
5£ <Tvp.ir\-qpovix^vris oil yevvaTou £$ov. The word ^XXaTTw/i^j/y looks like confirmation 
of the view here taken. The rest of the sentence suggests more naturally the period of 
Love, but is not necessarily so interpreted. 

2 The definite connection of Cypris with the Golden Age is to the writer evidence 
that there is a real relation between the two doctrines. 

3 783, 2. 



THE WORLD-CYCLE 5 1 

as evidence of the exact reverse of its true implication. Aristotle is made 
to say that it is the period of Strife, which Empedocles omits. 1 

In his actual working out of the cycle in detail, Zeller always assumes 
that it is the period of Strife which is omitted. He begins his account of 
the generation of the world with the Sphaeros, it is true, but Strife separates 
the elements all at once, and a world is formed only in the process of re-unit- 
ing the elements again into the Sphaeros, that is, in the period of Love. 
In the main portion of his account the period of Love is uniformly treated 
as the present world, and all of the fragments and notices are said to have 
reference to it. 2 

Not only in regard to the implications of Aristotle's direct testimony 
does Zeller fall into confusion, but also in the attempt to interpret the 
fragments and notices as all referring to the period of Love. Many of them 
must be forced from their natural meaning to make them accord with that 
hypothesis. In particular is this true of the accounts which describe the 
formation of the heavens out of a mixture. To explain this Zeller assumes, 
with no historical evidence, that before an organic world is created the 
separated elements are stirred up into a confused mass by a whirling motion 
caused by Love. This mass he describes as "[der] Wirbel in dem die 
getrennten Elemente durch die Liebe zusammengeruttert wurden." 3 
This whirling motion he identifies with the Sivy mentioned in Fragment 
35. It has no connection with the present revolution of the heavens, also, 
as Aristotle says, called by the name &ivrj, which Zeller in accord with 
ancient testimony is compelled to ascribe to a different cause. 4 

The two forms of generation of animals, to which reference has been 
made, must by Zeller be assumed to belong to one period. There can, 
however, be no real relation between the two modes of formation. 5 

The only argument of importance which can be urged in Zeller's favor 
is that Fragment 35 of Empedocles' poem, one of the longest and most 

1 793> 3 contains the quoted statement; 786, 2 and 4 the conclusion regarding the 
omission of the period of Strife. 

2 Writers seem not to have observed Zeller's confusion. Even Tannery, who 
dissents from Zeller very materially in his general conception of the cycle, follows him 
here, Tannery, p. 308. 

3 The passages wherein the world is described as generated from a mixture are 
cited, p. 49, 2. Plutarch uses the phrase tic irpdrrfs rrjs t&v aTotxetwv Kpdaews, which 
is difficult to interpret in accordance with Zeller's theory. 

4 This cause is the overweight of fire, Plut., Strom., 10. The phrase St^Kpive yhp 
rb NetWos, used by Aristotle (De Gen. et Corr., B 6, 334, a, 1), of the process of " Welt- 
bildung" shows again that he regarded it as the period of Strife. 

s On this point cf. further p. 57. 



52 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 

important fragments that we possess, undoubtedly deals with the period 
supposed to be omitted, the period of Love. 1 

But this is not in necessary contradiction with Aristotle. He tells us 
only that no account of the genesis of the world in the period of Love was 
given. By this he probably means no description of the formation of the 
heavens and earth, the " Weltbildung " in its larger outlines. Fragment 35 
probably is a stop-gap where such an account would be expected and 
furnishes a fitting introduction to the description of some of the detailed 
phenomena of that world. 2 To the period of Love, we conclude, are to be 
referred Fragment 35, and all of the descriptions of the formation of animals 
out of separate members, with the monstrosities incident to that process. 
To the period of Strife belong Fragment 62, and practically all of the other 
notices we possess of details of the formation of the world, and of meteo- 
rological, physical, and biological phenomena. 

The view here adopted is, as already noticed, essentially the position 
of Dummler and Burnet. Gomperz professes to follow Dummler 3 but 
his detailed treatment presents serious difficulties. The accounts of the 
formation of the heavens and earth, the sun, stars, sea, etc., are all described 
by him correctly as belonging to the period of Strife. 4 He rightly refers the 
formation of men and women out of undifferentiated forms to that period. 
All of the other fragments concerning organic life seem to be referred to the 
period of Love. This clearly cannot be the case if the present is the period 
of Strife. 

The accounts of Empedocles' philosophy usually take the Sphere as the 

1 A brief statement of Epiph., Adv. Haer., iii, 19 (Dox., 591) suggests that the 
present is the period of Love: Kex&P l(rrai ~Y&P, 0W^, T ^ irpbrepov, vvv 8k crvv-qvoiTai, 
ws X^yet, (ptXwdivra dXX 77X01 s. This sentence, however, is not entirely unequivocal, and 
if it were, it would have little weight compared with the facts on the other side. 

2 Fr. 35 is evidently the resumption of a theme already touched upon, and possibly 
follows a digression upon some minor subject. Zeller takes it to be the account of the 
first stages in the formation of the world of Love, in his view the present world. It is, 
however, in essential contradiction with the other accounts of the formation of the 
present world, which, as is elsewhere noted, derive it from a mixture and not from the 
separated elements. 

The somewhat numerous references to this passage by ancient writers, may be due 
to the fact that here Empedocles defines with some explicitness the respective agency of 
Love and Strife in their relation to a period in the world cycle, whereas in the cosmology 
proper much attention is given to secondary causes. Cf. Arist., Met., A 4, 985 a, 21; 
Gen. et Corr., B 6, 333 &, 33, where Empedocles is criticized for neglecting Love and 
Strife in his cosmology. 

3 Cf. Gomperz, note to p. 196. 

4 Pp. 194 ff. 



THE WORLD-CYCLE 53 

logical starting-point of the cycle, whatever be their view as to the present 
period. 1 There are reasons for supposing that the separated elements 
were Empedocles' own starting-point. His insistence upon the primitive 
character of the four elements, upon the fact that all else is derived from 
them, makes it natural that he should begin his description of the cycle 
with them. The brief statements of the poem referring to the world trans- 
formations suggest this order of treatment. 2 Aristotle speaks of the ele- 
ments as "by nature prior to the god" or Sphaeros. 3 A strong witness for 
it is also found in Aetius' account of the four forms of animal generation. 4 
The passage will be discussed later, but we may notice here that the first 
two forms of generation mentioned, and specified as the first two, belong 
without question to the period of Love. This period would naturally, then, 
have been first treated in Empedocles' poem. Burnet and others who 
have hitherto dissented from the view that the four forms of animal genera- 
tion all belong to the present world, have been forced to reject Aetius' 
indication of the order in which these different forms made their appearance. 
Whether there be a period of rest under the sway of Strife requires some 
special consideration. The fragments contain no hints that bear upon 
the question. If the foregoing discussion be correct, there must be at least 
a point of complete separation between the two cosmic periods. 5 The 
symmetry of the system would seem to suggest that this be more than a 
point. Aristotle implies that equal times were assigned to the domination 
of Love and Strife, 6 which would require a prolonged interval under the 
sole sway of Strife, unless we are to suppose a longer struggle in the period 
when he is in the ascendency. The chief objection that has been brought 
to such a period of rest is the a priori one, that it is incompatible with the 
notion of the domination of Strife. The wildest confusion, it is urged, 
should signalize his mastery. This objection is not without force, yet it is 
quite clear that Aristotle thought of such a period as intervening. We 

1 Cf. Zeller, 780; Burnet, 245. 

2 Cf. Fr. 26; Fr. 17, 16, and 1; Fr. 21. Brief incidental statements of this sort are 
a significant indication of the way the matter lies in the writer's mind. Cf. Zeller, 813, 5. 
where it is acknowledged that the Sphere is always by Empedocles thought of as derived. 
The implications of this fact, however, are not regarded by Zeller. 

3 De Gen. et Corr., B 6, 333 b 21. 

4 Quoted on p. 57. 

s It is not possible to cite lines in which this is explicitly stated, though the poem 
is not without evidence on the point. Cf. Fr. 35, 14, where the phrase to irplv yABov 
dddvar'' ehai, a figurative expression though it be, suggests, in contrast to the following 
line, this idea. 

6 Phys. t 6 1, 252 a, 31. 



54 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 

have the oft-quoted passage of the Physics whose evidence is unequivocal: 
"As Empedocles says, it is in turn in motion and at rest, in motion when 
Love makes one out of many or Strife many out of one, and at rest in the 
intervals." 1 Further evidence of Aristotle's opinion can be found in his 
criticism of Empedocles' view that the earth is kept in its place by the 
revolution of the heavens. He asks how this stability can be explained at 
the time when the elements are separated by Strife: "For he surely cannot 
then appeal to the revolution [of the heavens] as an explanation. "- Plutarch, 
on the contrary speaks of the elements, when entirely separated by Strife, 
as in motion, their movements being erratic and unruly. 3 Under ordinary 
circumstances Plutarch's evidence would have little force against that of 
Aristotle, but in this instance the weight of Aristotle's testimony is lessened 
by the fact that in the former passage, he cites as authority for his state- 
ment lines of Empedocles that cannot possibly have the interpretation he 
gives them, and which have nothing to do with the question in hand. It 
is not impossible that Empedocles himself left the matter ambiguous. If 
the hypothesis given regarding the outline of his treatment be correct, no 
necessity would arise for definition upon this point. Save in the brief 
initial summary there would be no occasion for an account of the transition 
from the end of the period of Strife to the beginning of the period of Love. 
Here he may have contented himself with some such statement as that 
"Strife now had won complete sway and separated the elements. Love 
re-entered and he withdrew to the depths of the world. " This outline of his 
treatment is given as merely a possible method of dealing with his theme. 
In the present state of our knowledge we should leave the question open. 
The evidence is insufficient to decide it with certainty. 

Although the cycle of the world's transformation may be analyzed into 
four distinct moments as is done by Zeller, Burnet, and others, it is 
better to think of it in terms of two, as was done by all the ancient thinkers, 

1 Arist., Phys., d i, 250 b, 26; also 252 a, 5-10 which is to the same effect, though 
it is not so explicit, and throws no independent light upon the question. The fact that 
the singular is used in the latter passage in the phrase rbv fiera^b xpt> vov is not, as has 
been thought by von Arnim, significant. In the context "in the interval " would natur- 
ally mean "each interval," since their sway is spoken of as "alternate," iv pJpei. 
Simplicius interprets the period of rest referred to by Aristotle as the Sphaeros alone, 
but his is not a testimony which has weight on this point for reasons stated on p. 47 f. 

3 De Caelo, B 13, 295 a, 30: 6re yap to. <rrotx«a Steicrr^/cei x w /" s v™ T °v Ne//covs, 
Tt's alria rrj 777 ttjs fwvrjs ?jv ; oi> yap 8rj Kal r6re alridaerai ttjv dlvrjv. Met., A 4, 985 
a, 25 contains the same implication. 

3 Plut., De Fac. in Orbe Lun., 926 F: [al dpxo-l] (pevyovcrai. Kal airo<TTp€<p6p.evai Kal 
<pep6p.evai <popa$ I8ias Kal avd&Seis, k. t. X. 



THK WORLD-CYCLE 55 

including Empedocles himself. 1 These two are the period of Love 
wherein Love wins by a prolonged struggle the mastery over Strife and 
holds it undisputed for a time, and the period of Strife, wherein the case is 
reversed. The discrepancy in phraseology between ancient and modern 
writers at this point, has produced an apparent inconsistency which has 
helped to give plausibility to the denial of a double genesis of mortal things. 

The phrases used by Aristotle and later writers, i-trl 1% <f>i\oTrjTo<s 
and e7ri tov NetKov?, were probably not used by Empedocles himself. 
Since he described his worlds in their time succession, no names would 
need to be given. 

Some confusion is occasioned among neo-Platonic writers by their 
natural desire to identify the period of Love with the Sphaeros. This 
would give them, as we have already noticed, a close analogy in Empedo- 
cles to their own philosophy. 2 

Of the duration of the two periods, no certain evidence is given. It is 
not impossible that the thirty thousand seasons which we are told the 
condemned soul must wander, has some significance in this connection. 
Inconsistent as are the Physics and Purifications in their main spirit, they 
are not without positive relation, as will be later shown. We are left 
wholly in the dark whether by thirty thousand seasons a definite period 
is meant, or simply an indefinite number. 3 

1 Empedocles repeatedly differentiates as two moments, the "gathering all into 
one" from the "separating into many." Cf. also Plato, Soph., 242 D. 

2 Cf. Simpl., De Caelo, 305, 21. 

3 The latter seems the more probable; Rohde, II 2 , 180. Zeller thinks the 
statement has no significance in this connection, p. 780, 1. If it be a definite number 
it may be ten thousand years with Dieterich, JSfekyia, 119. Cf. Plato, Phaedrus,. 248 
E; Herod., ii, 123, cited by Diels. 



THE FIRST PERIOD 

Of the period of Love we cannot form a detailed picture. Fragment 35 
contains nearly all that we know about it. It is there implied that some 
elements of a description have previously been given, including an account 
of a whirling motion which is here taken for granted. Strife is described 
as making his way gradually to the outermost limits of the revolving mass 
of substances, and Love enters as he withdraws. As she enters, the ele- 
ments are gradually united and form countless combinations of mortal 
forms "marvelous to behold." We have no hint whether or no this 
whirling motion was caused by Love. Possibly it, like the revolution in the 
present world, was caused by a disturbance in the equilibrium of things 
at the inception of her conflict with Strife. Whether the large masses of the 
elements were distributed as in the present world, we have no knowledge. 
It is not impossible that in the complete separation of the elements by 
Strife, the four were placed in concentric layers. In that case the organized 
world of the period of advancing Love would, in the general distribution 
of the elements, resemble the present one. We may be certain that it 
does not in all respects resemble the period of Strife, but there is no 
warrant for constructing a priori either its elements of likeness or differ- 
ence, tempting as is the opportunity for conjecture. 

The mode of death, for example, might be conceived with Dummler in 
accordance with the logic of the system, as caused by too complete mixture. 1 
The logic of the system may not, however, have been carried out by Empedo- 
cles. Judging from his philosophical method in general, we should expect 
to find in his account a few striking phenomena fancifully conceived, as 
presenting some features of contrast to the present world. Glaring incon- 
sistencies might quite well be present. Empedocles is at no time a slave to 
logic, and here his fancy has a field all its own. It is hopeless to attempt 
to construct a priori the workings of that fancy. We must content ourselves 
with the few notices that have come down to us. These are confined to an 
account of the generation of animals. The members were created separ- 
ately, persisted for a brief time in isolation, and afterward were joined 
together by Love. Some of the combinations effected were fantastic, such 
as oxen with the heads of men, and double-faced and double-breasted 
beings. We have already seen reason for referring these creatures, contrary 

1 Dummler, Ak., p. 220, attempts to reconstruct Empedocles' thought on this and 
certain other points in accordance with a priori logic. 

56 



THE FIRST PERIOD 57 

to the accepted view, 1 to a period other than the present. The evidence that 
they belong to the period of Love is indubitable, 2 and it has been made clear 
that this is not the present world. The only counter evidence of impor- 
tance that has been urged, is the account of Aetius: "Empedocles said that 
the first creations of animals and plants were far from complete. They 
were divided, having their members not fitted together; the second had 
the members joined and were fantastic creatures; the third were forms with 
no differentiation of members, 3 and the fourth were beings produced, not 
from the simple elements, as from earth and water, but through union with 
one another. " 4 Here the creation of the separate limbs and of the monstrous 
combinations are the first two of four successive forms of creation of plant 
and animal life. Taken by itself the passage would naturally suggest the 
reference of all these modes of generation to the present world. Yet 
Aetius does not tell us that they belong to the same period, nor that they de- 
pend upon one another. The passage is, moreover, so extremely condensed 
that there is no difficulty in supposing that the enumeration embraces the 
forms of generation in both periods. The order in which they are mentioned 
is chronologically correct, if, as already urged, the period of Love is the one 
first in order in Empedocles' description. 5 Whether in the period of Love 
plants were generated, we have no means of knowing. The passage of 
Aetius just cited is by him referred to plants as well as animals. Two of 
these stages we have referred to the period of Love. Zeller doubts the 
evidence of the passage regarding plants, 6 on the ground that no account 
is taken of it in the pseudo- Aristotelian, De Plantis, nor in Lucretius. 7 
Some confirmation of Zeller's position is found in Aristotle. It seems that 

1 So Zeller, Diels, von Arnim, and others (cf. Diels, Hermes, XV, 168). 

2 Ancient authorities upon this point appear to be unanimous, with the exception 
of Philop., Phys., 314, 7, and 17, on which cf. p. 48. Cf. Arist, De Caelo, T 2, 300 
b, 25; Simpl., De Caelo, 587, 18; Phys., 371, ss- 

3 It is true, as Gomperz remarks, that the reading 6\o<pvQv rests upon conjecture; 
yet it is almost a certain conjecture, for so significant a stage could hardly be omitted 
in Aetius' account. It refers primarily to men and women and not to animals in general. 
Yet it would seem that it must have positive relation to the mode of generation of ani- 
mals. 

4 Aet., v, 19, 5. 

5 This view agrees with that of Burnet, save that, as already noted, he is compelled 
to reject Aetius' evidence as to the chronological sequence of the four forms of existence, 
since he treats the Sphaeros as the starting-point of the world cycle. 

6 Ueber die griechischen V or ganger Darwins; Zeller, Abh. d. Ak. zu Berl., 
1878, in. 

' Lucretius, v, 782, ff., 837 ff. 



50 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 

evidence on this point was not known to him, from his inquiry whether 
monstrosities in the plant world were produced to correspond with the 
'oxen-kinds with the faces of men." 1 But Fragment 20 mentions plants 
along with men and animals as among the existences whose members 
sometimes wander in isolation on "the shore of life." Probably Empedo- 
cles meant to include plants, but gave no specific account of them. 

We do not know whether the creations of this period were all mon- 
strosities. Fragment 62, describing the generation of men and women 
in the present world, hardly seems to admit of a preceding account of their 
formation, but we are told by Censorinus and Simplicius 2 that men were 
created by the union of the separate members. Censorinus' statement is 
obviously based on a very slight knowledge of Empedocles, and we shall 
presently notice the lack of originality in this passage of Simplicius. 3 
We may regard it as not impossible, though not certain, that they were so 
created. 4 

EVOLUTION 

In connection with the mention of the monstrosities belonging to this 
period are made the statements of Aristotle and his commentators, on the 
basis of which has been attributed to Empedocles an anticipation of Dar- 
winian evolution. Such an attribution, tempting as it is, is hardly justified 
by the evidence. Simplicius, to be sure, tells us that in the chance putting 
together of the members by Love, those combinations survived which were 
adapted to fulfil the functions of nutrition, while the others perished. 5 
But an attentive reading of the entire passage, in connection with the 
chapter of Aristotle upon which it is based, gives unmistakably the impres- 
sion that Simplicius attributes to Empedocles a view discussed by Aris- 
totle in close connection with an allusion to Empedocles' " oxen-kinds 
with faces of men. " 6 Aristotle's mention of Empedocles seems to be purely 
incidental. The most that can with certainty be inferred from the passage, 
is that these monstrosities perished because they were not organized so as 
to be able to maintain life. Such a remark is not more than a common- 

1 Physics, B 8, 199 b, 10. 

2 Censorinus, De Die Nat., 4, 8; Simpl., Phys., 372, 6. 

3 Cf. Zeller, 796, 1, upon the passage of Aristotle, which Simplicius follows. 

4 In the original poem Fr. 57, 58, 59, and 60, probably followed quite closely Fr. 
35. Some time after them came Fr. 36. The fragments descriptive of the Sphaeros 
came still later and then 31, 32, and possibly 33. 

5 Simpl., ad Arist. Phys., B 8, 198 b, 29. Philoponus comments on the same pas- 
sage of Aristotle to precisely the same effect as Simplicius. 

6 The coincidence even of minor phrases is unmistakable. 



THE FIRST PERIOD 



59 



place, and cannot be regarded as even the germ of Darwinian evolution. 1 
It does not recognize the dependence of later stages upon earlier. 2 The 
changes in the organization of plants and animals are incident to the advance 
in the world cycle. Even if we ascribe to Empedocles all that Simplicius 
suggests, we have still to do simply with the survival of the individual organ- 
ism, and hence have absolutely no basis for evolution. The barrier between 
animal life and man is not broken down, nor that between plant and animal 
life. They are to be sure all endowed, as is inanimate matter, with percep- 
tion and feeling, but each generates only its own kind, and no progression is 
made from one to the other. It is only the accident that Empedocles' 
system was cast in the mold of an advancing cycle, that has given his fanciful 
suggestions about the creation of animal life an appearance of greater 
dignity than the other systems of his time. Indeed we have not in him 
even a consistent advance. The period of Strife is thought of as a retro- 
gression from beginning to end, and the men of today, we are told, are 
but infants compared with those of the past. 3 

Empedocles' interesting suggestion, Fragment 82, regarding the essential 
identity of leaves, hair, wings, and scales, should not be overlooked in this 
connection. 4 There is no reason to ascribe to him the thought that these 
forms were developed one from the other, or to suppose that in any way he 
carried out the implications of the observation. But it is a most significant 
instance of the poet's delight in coincidences and analogies, the acuteness 
of which sometimes brings him to the brink of great discoveries. While 
Gomperz assumes much in calling him the forerunner of morphological 
science, the fragment is very suggestive in this connection. 



THE SPHAEROS 

Of the further description of the world process in this period, we know 
nothing. Love finally triumphed and all the elements were completely 

1 Gomperz, p. 196, while he does not attribute to Empedocles so much as do 
many writers, notably Windelband, 50, and Lange, Gesch. d. Materialismus, i, 1, still 
gives him too much credit at this point; cf. also Ueberweg Grundr., i, 74. 

2 Aet, v, 19, 5, is taken wrongly by Windelband, p. 40, to imply that the higher 
do grow out of lower forms of life. 

3 Ueber die griechischen V or ganger Darwins; Zeller, loc. cit. 

Zeller has called attention to the fact that an evolutionary theory, based on chance, 
could not appear until the teleological view of the world had been more thoroughly 
developed than was the case at this time. 

4 Cf. also the suggestion in Fr. 76, which evidently was part of an attempt to 
bring into definite relation the bone skeleton of some animals with the protecting shells 
of others. Cf. Pseudo-Arist., De Spiritu, 6, 484 a, 39. 



60 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 

mingled in the form of a Sphere. Strife was banished. 1 Whether he 
was pictured as taking any specific form, we have no means of knowing. 
It is too much to say with Burnet that he was pictured "no doubt sur- 
rounding the Sphere in circular layer. " 2 It is true that Empedocles shared 
the tendency of early Greek thought to represent everything in a spatial 
perception, but even the clear light of a Greek imagination does not define 
all outlines, and this may have been one of the points left in shadow. If a 
definite picture was suggested, it may well have been a mythologizing one, 
as in the description of the re-entering of Strife into the Sphere. 

The mingling of the elements in the Sphaeros was so thorough that no 
one of them manifested its individual qualities therein. 3 It is spoken of 
as "one," 4 and as a god; 5 in the fragments it is personified throughout. 
"He rejoices in the isolation that surrounds him. " 6 He has no hands and 
feet. 7 This personification is not poetic merely; here, no less than in his 
theory of the elements, Empedocles is a hylozoist, or perhaps better, as 
Gomperz puts it, a hylopsychist. 8 It would be strange indeed if "all things 
were endowed with intelligence," and the Sphaeros not. 9 Aristotle's 
phrase "the most blessed god" doubtless is true to Empedocles' thought, 
though foreign to his phraseology. 10 From Empedocles' point of view the 
highest form of conscious life may belong to the Sphaeros without departing 
from the view that he is simply a mixture of the elements. For as simple 

1 That Hate is excluded from the Sphaeros needs no proof after Zeller's summary 
of the evidence, p. 781, 1. 

2 P. 251. This suggestion seems to be adopted from Tannery, p. 309. 

3 Fr. 27. The two lines wherein this is stated are by Plutarch referred to the time 
when Strife is dominant; so Mullach, Tannery. Simplicius, however, refers them to 
the Sphere. 

4Fr. 17, 7; 20, 2; 26, 7; 35, 5. 
s Fr. 31. 

6 Fr. 28. 

7 Fr. 29. 

8 Cf. Gomperz, p. 197. 

9 Fr. 103 and no, 10. 

i° Met., B 4, 1000 b, 3. The trivial character of Aristotle's criticism, of which 
this forms a part, does not vitiate the value of the hint it contains on the point under 
discussion. The criticism is that the blessed god has not as full knowledge as other 
beings, since he lacks knowledge of Strife. Gomperz, we may note in passing, has 
strangely mistaken the meaning of this passage. He attributes to Empedocles himself 
the conclusion drawn by Aristotle as an objection to Empedocles' theory, and cites it 
as an instance of "die strenge Folgerichtigkeit .... mit welcher der Akragantiner 
seine Grundgedanken hier bis in deren aiisserste Konsequenzen verfolgt hat" (p. 198). 



THE FIRST PERIOD 6 1 

mingling furnishes the basis for, indeed constitutes, the higher forms of 
conscious life in the world as we know it, so in its complete form it may 
constitute a perfect consciousness. 

Whether the Sphere was homogeneous is a question incapable of answer 
in the strict sense of that term, because Empedocles had evidently not faced 
the problems involved in it. 1 The same difficulty confronts us on a large 
scale here, as in the attempt to ascertain just what he means by mixture in 
the individual combinations of the present world. The same answer must 
be given here as there, that he evaded the problems involved, or did not see 
them. The searching Eleatic criticism of the problem of the " one and 
many" was really passed by without being comprehended, and the terms 
"one" and "mingled" were used as indefinitely as in common language. 
Mingled here means, as in the individual organisms of the present world, 
some sort of fusing and transforming; a "making like." Further defini- 
tion than this, it did not receive. 2 To Aristotle's mind the unity effected 
was such as to preclude the possibility of the elements' retaining their 
identity in the Sphaeros. Though he recognizes that the hypothesis of a 
new generation of the elements out of the Sphaeros was inconsistent with 
Empedocles' assertion of their eternity, 3 he nevertheless repeatedly refers 
to the Sphaeros as a mixture. 4 This superficial inconsistency in Aristotle's 
notices, need not surprise us. It arises naturally from the ill-defined char- 
acter of Empedocles' position. 

As we should expect, the Sphaeros, partly because of the indefiniteness 
of the doctrine, furnishes a fertile field for the conjectures of later Greek 
writers. In Aristotle this tendency begins with a somewhat cautious 
analogy between the Sphaeros and his own indeterminate matter. In later 
writers it is unequivocally asserted to be without qualities, 5 and is identified 
now with potentiality, now with the neo-Platonist "intelligible world," 

1 It is so regarded by Tannery, p. 309. 

2 We have no assurance that Empedocles himself described the Sphaeros as a 
mixture. Mingling is, however, his usual word for Love's work of union. Burnet 
assumes that the Sphaeros is unequivocally described by Empedocles as a mixture. 

3 De Gen. et Corr., A 1, 315 a, 3 ff., and 18 ff. "For he denies that the elements 
can come one from another, .... and yet, at the same time, when he brings together 
into one the whole creation with the exception of Strife, each must be again produced 

from the one For surely fire and earth and water could not have kept their 

identity when the universe was one." 

4 Met., N 5, 1092 b, 7; A 10, 1075 b, 4; A 2, 1069 b, 22; Phys., A 4, 187 a, 23. 

5 Philop., De Gen, et Corr., 19, 7, a paraphrase of Arist., De Gen. et Corr., A 1, 
315 a, 3, but very inaccurate in its inferences. 



62 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 

now with Love, 1 now with avdyKt]. 2 These are all vagaries of interpreta- 
tion without historical basis. 

One cannot help wondering how far Empedocles' thought of the Sphaeros 
contained the germ of the idea, later so dominant, that the highest state of 
being contains no differentiation of individual existences. It is quite clear 
that the Sphaeros is thought of as a blessed state of being, but it seems likely 
that the conception received no further development in his hands. 

1 The source of this error is to be found in Aristotle's careless statement, Met., 
B i, 996 a, 8. Cf. I, 2, 1053 b, 15. Zeller's attempt, 763, n. 4, to justify Aristotle at 
this point is hardly successful. 

The identification of the Sphaeros with Love found a modern supporter in Ritter. 

2 The root of this identification of the Sphaeros with avdyK-rj is probably the 
"mighty oath" of Fragment 30, which is translated into prose by Arist., Phys., 6 1, 
252 a, 9, in a form that easily develops into the statement of Aet., i, 7, 28, where 
Empedocles' theory is really under consideration. 






THE SECOND PERIOD 

The beginning of the dissolution of the Sphere is described with a strong 
touch of poetic imagination. "All the members of the god trembled." 1 
Our accounts of the succeeding cosmic process are most inadequate. First 
air was separated off, then fire, each containing apparently some admixture 
of the other. 2 From some of the air was formed, by the action of fire, a 
crystal vault which encircles the entire heavens. 3 Its shape is described 
by Aetius, but not with perfect clearness. It was perhaps a flattened 
sphaeroid, as Zeller suggests. 4 Beneath this vault two hollow hemis- 
pheres were formed, one of fire, one of air, for in this first separation 
fire was borne upward, air down beneath the earth. 5 The weight 
of fire causes the revolution of the heavens. The earth remains in 
the center, 6 held there by this revolution 7 and from it the sea is pressed 

1 Fr. 31. 

2 Plut., Strom., 10 (Dox., 582); Philo, De Prov., ii, 60, p. 86. Earth, which is 
spoken of as remaining after the others are separated out, is later shown to contain 
some mixture of the other elements. Fire is also found to contain air, of which the 
moon is subsequently formed. Since the stars are fastened to the crystal vault, the 
fire of which they are composed would seem to have been carried out with the aether 
that first separated itself. 

3 Aet, ii, 11, 2; Lactant, De Opif. Dei, 17, 6; Philo, De Prov., ii, 60, p. 86. 

4 Zeller, p. 787, 2. Tannery and Burnet believe that Empedocles borrowed from 
the Orphics the notion that it was egg-shaped. But the description of Aet., ii, 31, 4, 
suggests merely that its position is like an egg, with its larger dimension the horizontal 
one. We have no evidence that even this allusion to an egg is derived from Empedo- 
cles himself. The description reads as follows: E. tov (>\f/ovs tov dwb tt}s 777s /et'j rbv\ 
ovpavhv, . . „ . irXdova elvai tt)v Kara rb trXdros didaraaip, Kara tovto tov ovpavov 
fidWop dvcnreTrTa.fji.4vov, did rb (pip TrapaTr\T)o~lu)s rbv nbapjov Keiadai. 

5 De Gen. et Corr., B 6, 334 a, 1, seems to refer to this time, with Fr. 54 and 55. 

6 Arist., De Caelo, B 13, 295 a, 13. Its form is not specified but was probably 
spherical, for it is the residuum of the original sphere after other things are taken out, 
and it is the center of revolution, being pressed into shape apparently by that revolu- 
tion. Cf. Philo, De Prov., ii, 60, p. 86. 

7 The equilibrium of the entire heavens seems to be due to this revolution, Arist., 
De Caelo, B 1, 284 a, 25. A reference to this revolution as the cause of the earth's 
stability should probably be restored in Philo, De Prov., ii, 60, p. 86. "Quietis autem 
inde causa per deum, " where Wendland suggests that divov originally stood, and was 
misunderstood by the translator. The following words: "Non vero per sphaeras 
multas super se invicem positas, quarum circumrotationes poliverint figuram, " are 
probably, as Wendland suggests, a criticism of the Stoic position. A further statement 

63 



64 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 

out. 1 The sea seems at first to have surrounded the earth in a layer, and 
later to have been collected into its present form. ' Most writers have sup- 
posed that the separation of the great masses of the elements as they appear 
in our world, was effected by a whirling motion, in accordance with the 
traditions of the Ionians. 2 But the revolution of the heavens is expressly 
said to begin after the separation was partly effected. 3 The view in ques- 
tion seems to be necessitated, as already noted, by the supposition that the 
present world is the world of Love. The separation is, however, exactly 
what we should expect as the result of the operation of Strife. 4 The ele- 
ments seem to have "distributed themselves" capriciously, or by weight. 5 

This is clearly the place in the cosmology to which the passages of Aris- 
totle already mentioned refer, wherein the motion of aether and fire are 
described as independent of Love and Strife. 

The revolution of the heavens is explained by the lack of equilibrium 
in them. 6 The revolution was at first slow, lasting ten months. We are not 
told what was the cause of the acceleration, nor whether it was gradual or 
abrupt. 7 The earth clearly has a tendency to sink downward, otherwise 

of Empedocles' theory follows: " Quia circa earn compressa fuit Sphaera ignis mirabilis 
(magnae enim et multiplicis theoriae vim habet), ideo nee hue nee illuc cadit ista." 
Regarding this part of the account we may quote the following from a private letter of 
Conybeare: "The words 'magnae enim et multiplicis theoriae vim habet' are a mis- 
translation. Render 'magnae enim et multiplicis formae vim habet' — a reference, I 
think, to the belief of Aristotle that circular movement is the most perfect of movements. 
In the preceding sentence, for the word 'lambar' rendered 'ignis,' another MS 
has KaXapav = 'typus, ' 'forma,' or 'exemplar.' The rendering would so become 
'quia circa earn circumjectus est (irepLefiXrjdr) or avvtKkeicrdri) typi cuiusdam gyrus,' 
'round the same was closely thrown a wonderful whirl of a kind.' This I think the 
better reading." Accepting Conybeare's suggestions in the main, we may question the 
reference to Aristotle's belief regarding circular motion. The clause is obscure, and 
perhaps corrupt. 

1 The description of it as "sweat" is a figurative account of this process. A 
characteristic employment of analogy is the explanation of its saltness by this means. 
Cf. Fr. 55; Arist., Meteor, B, 3, 357 a, 24; Aet., iii, 16, 3; ii, 6, 3. The sea contains 
sweet water as well as bitter. Ael., Nat. An., 6, 64. 

2 Tannery, Zeller, Gomperz, and others; while Burnet gives essentially the view 
here presented. 

3 Prut., Strom., 10. 

4 diiKpive yap rb Ne?Kos, Arist., De Gen. et Corr., B 6, 334 a, 1. 
s Philo's account gives much more importance to weight. 

6 Plut., loc. cit. 

7 Aet., v, 18, 1. Tannery, p. 314, assumes that it is gradual and is the resultant 
of the local and haphazard movements caused by Strife. This is a groundless assump- 
tion, and a most inadequate basis for his attributing to Empedocles the principle of 
conservation of energy. 



THE SECOND PERIOD 65 

the revolution of the heavens would not need to be invoked as an explana- 
tion of its stability. 1 As already noticed, a variety of bases of explanation 
of cosmic phenomena are employed, most of them without analysis or 
discussion. 2 

THE HEAVENLY BODIES 

Of the formation of the moon and stars we have a few hints. The 
former is air, taken off with the fire and hardened like hail in a disc shape. 3 
It gets its light from the sun, and is half as far from the earth as he. 4 Hard- 
ening processes in several instances are attributed to fire, after the analogy 
of baking. s The stars are bits of fire contained in the air in its first separa- 
tion, and pressed out from it; the fixed stars being fastened to the crystal 
vault. 6 Regarding the nature of the sun, the evidence is so confusing and con- 
tradictory as to require more detailed consideration. Indeed, no possible 
hypothesis will reconcile all the data. Some of them must be rejected, if 
any attempt at reconstruction is made. 

The two most important passages bearing upon the question read as 
follows : 

He says that from the original mingling of the elements the air was separated 
off, and spread around in a circle. After the air, the fire rushed out, and finding 
no other place, ran up underneath the hard substance around the air. In a circle 
around the earth move two hemispheres, one simply of fire, the other a mixture of 
air and a little fire, which he thinks is night. Their motion began from the fact 
that the fire as it was collected chanced to weigh too heavily. The sun is not fire 
in substance, but a reflection of fire, like that produced from water. 7 

Empedocles says there are two suns, one the archetypal consisting of fire, in 

1 It keeps its place like water in cups rapidly whirled around. Even as an analogy 
this fails. Arist, De Caelo, B 1, 284 a, 24; B 13, 295 a, 16; T 2, 300 b, 1. Note also 
that in the account of the growth of plants a natural motion of fire upward, and of earth 
downward is assumed. Arist., De. An., B, 4, 415 b, 28. 

2 We are told that weight is not discussed, Arist., De Caelo, A 2, 309 a, 19, but we 
should be practically certain of it without that evidence. 

3 Pseudo-plut., Strom., 10; D. L., 77; Aet., ii, 25, 15; ii, 27, 3; Plut, DeFac, in 
Orbe Lun., 922 C; Empedocles, Fr. 45; Aet., ii 28, 5. 

4 Aet., ii, 31, 1, as corrected by Diels. Empedocles was not the first to see that the 
moon shines by borrowed light; the Pythagoreans and Parmenides both knew it. The 
suggestion, Achill. in Arat. 16 (p. 43, 2 Maas), that the moon is a detached part of the 
sun, 6,trb<nra<Tfxa, seems simply an inaccurate statement based on Fr. 45. 

s Note the hardening of the crystal vault, Aet., ii, 11, 2; of rocks, Arist., Probl., 
K A, 11, 937 a, 15; cf. also Fr. 73 of Empedocles. 

6 Aet., ii, 13, 2, and ii, 13, 11. 

7 Pseudoplut., Strom., loc. cit. 



66 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 

one hemisphere of the world, filling the hemisphere, always stationed opposite its 
reflection; the other the visible sun, its reflection in the other hemisphere, the 
hemisphere of air with a mixture of fire. This reflection is produced by a 
rebound from the round earth into the crystal sun, and is carried around with 
[the hemisphere of air] by the motion of the fire hemisphere; or, to state it briefly, 
the sun is a reflection of the fire around the earth. 1 

A number of questions immediately suggest themselves: (a) Is the 
air hemisphere night, as is stated in the first passage, or day, as the second 
implies by locating the visible sun in it ? (b) How can the visible sun 
be a reflection of the fire opposite, and at the same time be a " reflection 
from the round earth"? (c) If the fire hemisphere be opposite the sun 
how can the night be dark when this fire is overhead ? (d) What is meant 
by the "crystal sun" ? 

Among the scholars w T hose investigations in this field are regarded as 
significant, no agreement is to be found. According to Zeller the sun is a 
crystal body as large as the earth, which collects as a burning glass the light 
of the fiery day hemisphere, and streams it upon the earth. 2 The state- 
ment that the sun reflects the light of the opposite hemisphere, he supposes 
to be only an inference on the part of the ancient writers. Tannery 
maintains that it is an image of the earth, lighted up by the fire of the day 
hemisphere, and reflected upon the celestial vault of crystal. 3 Burnet 
subscribes to this view. 4 Diels retains more fully than any one else the 
statements of the ancient writers. The sun is a crystal lens of condensed 
mist containing particles of fire, lighted up by the rays streaming up from 
the opposite hemisphere. 5 Our knowledge of this portion of Empedocles' 
thought is so fragmentary, he remarks, that we may not hope to ascertain 
exactly the considerations which made this hypothesis acceptable. 6 The 
Pythagorean notion that the visible sun is a crystal which reflects the light 
from the central sun, may have been adopted without due realization of the 

i Aet, ii, 20, 13. 2 Zeller, p. 789. 

3 Tannery, p. 317. 

4 Burnet, p. 254. Here as often, Burnet has unduly simplified the problem in the 
interest of clearness of presentation. 

5 Berl. Sitz., 1884, 352. 

Gomperz, p. 195, regards the sun as a glass-like body taking up and reflecting 
the light of the aether, but he does not make clear whether or no it is the light of the 
opposite hemisphere which is thus reflected. 

6 Tannery, pp. 236 f., rightly remarks that we should not expect perfect clearness 
of ideas as to the laws of direction in reflections. He also makes the suggestive observa- 
tion that highly polished surfaces under certain conditions present gleaming points 
of light, which may have been noticed by Empedocles. 



THE SECOND PERIOD 67 

difficulty involved in making the source of light revolve about the earth. 1 
This position, conservative as it is from the point of view of historical 
evidence, has by no means the unanimous support of ancient testimony, 
and cannot be regarded as certain. 2 Tempting as is the field of conjecture 
in default of decisive evidence, it is in this instance surely wiser to 
acknowledge the insufficiency of our data and suspend judgment. We 
shall hazard but a few minor suggestions toward clearing up the question. 
It is not impossible that the confusion into which ancient writers have fallen 
is occasioned by an assimilation of Empedocles' theory to that of the Pytha- 
goreans. If he had, for example, explained the sun as a mass of fire 
collected by a rebounding of the aetherial fire of the day hemisphere from 
the earth's surface, later writers would be almost certain to confuse this 
view with that of the Pythagoreans. 3 This assimilation might be responsible 
for the introduction of two elements into the Empedoclean cosmology, the 
idea of the crystal lens, 4 and the notion that the light of the sun comes from 
the opposite hemisphere. Against this derivation of the latter idea, we have 
two incidental statements, the weightier because incidental, that do not 
accord therewith. 5 Plutarch tells us that the moon is surrounded by the 
sphere of fire. 6 In the account of Aetius of the formation of the moon, we 
read that it " formed itself from the air cut off with the fire." 7 A further 
factor in bringing confusion into the study of this problem is the failure 
to observe that a reflected image with Empedocles was of precisely the same 
stuff as the object reflected. The particles sent forth by the object are 
" packed together" on the reflecting surface, and sent back through the 

1 Gomperz, on the other hand, suggests that the early Pythagoreans may be in- 
debted at this point to Empedocles. 

2 Philo, De Prov., ii, 60, p. 86 says nothing of the two hemispheres or of the idea 
that the sun is a reflection, although he gives an account of the separation of the 
heavens. 

3 Even Karsten's suggestion, p. 429, that the late Greek accounts of Empedocles' 
view of the sun are really imaginative expansions of Fr. 44, does not seem wholly beyond 
the range of possibility. 

4 The observation, Aet., ii, 1, 4, that the "circuit of the sun marks the boundary 
of the world" should be interpreted in the light of Aet., ii, 23, 3, where the encircling 
vault is said to cause the solstices by preventing the onward course of the sun. This 
last passage distinctly militates against the supposition that the reflection is upon the 
vault itself. 

s The three direct witnesses to this point, Plutarch and Stobaeus (Aet., ii, 20, 13) 
and Pseudo-Galen, 62 (Dox., 626) go back clearly to the same original and have, 
therefore, only the force of one testimony. 

6 De Fac. in Orb. Lun., 922 C. 

7 Plut., Strom., 10. 



68 



ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 



force of the fire streaming from this reflecting surface. 1 Therefore, 
even though the sun be a reflection, it is also a mass of fire. 2 

We may make one more suggestion toward clearing up the difficulties 
of this problem. The view that the night hemisphere is the one filled with 
fire, is not disproven by the observation that in that case the night would 
be blinding day Fire is not perceived unless it approaches the eye. It 
may be spread out in the heavens through the whole hemisphere that 
encircles us without our perceiving it. It may travel from one hemisphere 
to the other in large quantities without coming to us. 3 This is the point of 
Aristotle's criticism of Empedocles in a well-known passage of the De 
Anitna* a passage which has usually been taken to refer simply to the time 
it takes light to travel, but it is quite clear that it refers rather to the possi- 
bility of light being present in a medium without "actualizing" it, that is, 
without being perceptible throughout that medium. Empedocles' recogni- 
tion that it takes time for light to travel does not seem, as is thought by 
Gomperz and others, remarkable from a scientific point of view. It is 
simply an obvious accompaniment of the view that light is material. 

A few further observations regarding the heavens may be noticed in 
passing. As with the Pythagoreans the world has a right and left side, the 
former toward the summer solstice. 5 The north side of the heavens is 
higher than the south, caused by the impetus of the fire hemisphere. 6 The 
heavens above the moon are, as is usual in antiquity, regarded as a purer 
region than the earth and its neighborhood. 7 Eclipses of the sun are 
correctly explained by means of the interception of the moon. 8 

PLANTS 

Among plants, trees were the first to be formed, as Aetius tells 
us,9 

1 Aet., vi, 14, 1. 

2 ddpoia/Jia irvpbs fitya, D. L., viii, 77; cf. Philo, De Prov., ii, 60, p. 86, and Aet., 
ii, 6, 3. Note especially in this connection Empedocles' own words, Fr. 41. 

3 We have no reason to suppose that Empedocles recognized any invariable law 
for the direction of the motion of fire and of light. In general, they are doubtless 
thought of as moving in straight lines, but we should, in our thought of him, rid our- 
selves of the implications of our strict scientific notions on this point. 

4 Arist., De An., B 7, 418 b, 20. Philoponus in his note to this passage refers it 
to the time it takes for light to travel, and the kindred passage of the De Sensu, 6, 446 
a, 26 probably has this reference, but I believe an attentive reading of the De Anima 
passage in its full context, suggests the interpretation here given. 

s Aet., ii, 10, 2. 7 Hippol., Re}., i, 4, 3. 

6 Aet., ii, 8, 2. 8 Fr. 42; Aet., ii, 24, 7. 

9 Aet., v, 26, 4, for this and the following points. 



THE SECOND PERIOD 69 

before the sun was spread out around [the heavens] 1 and before day and night 
were parted. Because [the elements] were mixed in due proportions, no account 
was made of male and female. They grow by being pushed up by the heat in the 
earth, so that they are parts of the earth just as the embryo in the body is a part 
of the womb. The fruits are formed from the excess water and fire in the plant. 
Those trees that have not enough moisture lose their leaves in summer, when it 
evaporates, while those that have more keep them, as the laurel, the olive, and the 
palm. 2 The differences in the taste [of the fruits] are due to variations in the com- 
position of the soil, and to the different way in which the plants draw the "homoi- 
omeries" from the sustaining substance, just as is true of vines. For it is not a 
difference in the vine that makes wine good, but a difference in the soil that sup- 
ports it. 

Most of these points are true of plants in general. In some instances 
we have explicit statement to that effect. We are told that the tendency 
of fire upward and of earth downward is the cause of the growth of the 
limbs and roots respectively, in all plants. 3 It seems to have been recog- 
nized that in some plants there is distinction of sex. 4 

Plants are said to have been created in an incomplete state of the world; 5 
animals as it progressed farther. Incompleteness in this instance means 
merely less differentiation in the organism than later on, if the generation 
described belongs, as we suppose, to the period of Strife. Indeed, in the 
passage quoted concerning trees, this is explicitly stated, and the imperfect 
development of sex accords well with the view. 

Conscious life is attributed to plants, as to all nature. 6 They are 
expressly said to feel pleasure, pain, desire, and intelligence. 

Regarding the nutrition of plants we are left almost wholly to inference, 
being merely told that they take nourishment imperceptibly from their 
environment. 7 

1 Trepiair\(>)dT}pai is appropriate, since the entire hemisphere was filled with fire. 
Burnet suggests the questionable emendation: irplv irvpi iriXrjdTJvat " before [the earth] 
was solidified by fire." Reiske suggested TrepiKVKXcodijvaL. 

2 Plut., Quaest. Conv., 649 C, the symmetry of the pores is named as an additional 
cause of this phenomenon. 

3 Arist, De An., B 4, 415 b, 28; Theophr., De Cans. Plant., i, 12, 5. Theophras- 
tus observes further that the roots are made chiefly of earth, the leaves of air. 

4 Pseud. -Arist., De Plant., A 2, 817 a, 1 (cf. 815 a, 20). 
s Ibid., 8176, 35. 

6 Pseud. -Arist., De Plant., A 1, 815 a, 15; b, 16. 

7 Plut., Quaest. Conv., 688 A. 



70 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 

ANIMAL LIFE 

The third and fourth forms of generation of animals indicated by Aetius 
we refer to this period, as already noted. 1 Of the first of these we possess 
Empedocles' own account. 2 

First of all, whole-natured forms of earth sprang forth, with a portion in them 
of both water and warmth. These were sent upward by fire, eager to reach its 
like. In them was not yet seen the lovely contour of the human form, nor voice, 
nor the members belonging to man. 

These "whole-natured" forms were evidently fashioned within the 
earth by the agency of Love, and then forced to the surface by fire. 3 The 
attempt to explain this passage as the third stage of a continuous and 
progressive series is clearly very difficult. It has led to the assumption 
that they are human beings similar to those fancied by the Platonic Aristo- 
phanes, in which sex is not yet distinguished. 4 But it would seem -from 
Empedocles' words that differentiation of members has not gone far enough 
to justify this interpretations Aristotle's comparison of the "whole- 
natured" forms to seed also suggests very rudimentary forms of existence. 6 
The succeeding steps of differentiation are not preserved to us. We do not 
even know whether it was gradual or abrupt. The decisive point was 
reached, according to Aetius, when the differentiation of the sexes was 
effected, and reproduction took place through their union. 7 Until this 

1 Cf. the passage as cited, p. 57. 2 jr r . 62. 

3 Von Arnim supposes these to have been the animal trunk to which the several 
limbs attach themselves. 

4 Diels, Frag. Poet., ad Fr. 62. "oi\o<pveis sunt homines sexus nondum divisi 
quales fingit Aristophanes Platonicus." The translation of the Vorsokratiker, "rohge- 
ballte Erdklumpfen," does not, however, carry out this idea. 

5 Simplicius attempts a definition, Phys., 382, 17: 8 /ca0' 8\ov eavrb irav iarip 6vep 
&v €<xtl (sic). This is hardly in the spirit of Empedocles' untechnical and perhaps 
not over precise conception, but is perhaps nearer the truth than the view just 
mentioned. 

6 Loc. cit. Aristotle's language is inexact, but the context makes his meaning 
clear. He says, koX to oiXocpves ptv irp&Ta o-rripfjia fy ; that is, "the true whole- 
natured form is seed. " Simplicius wrongly supposes him to give this as an interpreta- 
tion of Empedocles' own intention. The extreme abbreviation of the passage of 
Aristotle is apparent. It reads like desultory and hasty notes on the subject. 

7 Zeller's objection, p. 795, 1, to placing these two forms of generation in the 
period of Love, is that yiveais 5i' aXK-qXCbv which is the specific work of Aphrodite, 
must, according to it, be brought to pass through the further advance of Strife. This 
objection is hardly valid, yiveais 5i' dWrjXQv is no more the work of Aphrodite 
than the "whole-natured forms." Empedocles may well have thought of the differ- 
entiation of the members as a less perfect expression of her organizing power. 



THE SECOND PERIOD 7 1 

point they sprang from the earth "like vegetables," some of the ancient 
accounts say. 1 The animals which have more heat in their composition 
seek the coldest abiding places. 8 The first men are said to have been 
produced in the south [and east ?] the first women in the north. 3 In general 
men are warmer than women and in reproduction this is given as the basis 
of the differentiation of the sexes. 4 Parmenides, it will be remembered, 
held just the reverse. That the first men were formed in Attica, in com- 
parison with whom the men of the present are as infants, is an interesting 
acceptance of mythological tradition. 5 In relation to these facts should 
perhaps be placed the account of the golden age in which Kypris is queen. 6 
However great may be the gap between the spirit of the Purifications and 
that of the Physics, this passage is so distinctly influenced by the place 
given Aphrodite in the Physics that we cannot avoid bringing it into relation 
therewith. The sentiments expressed fit in well with the identification 
of the present period with the period of degeneration. It is universally 
admitted that Empedocles' thought has throughout a strong touch of 
pessimism. It is not improbable that this tendency has something to do 
with the placing our world in the period when Strife is on the increase. 
And regarding the present world as far inferior to the past, puts his theory 
also into accord with a widely current tradition. 7 

1 Varro, Eumenid. Sat., Fr. xiv (Riese). The comparison probably is not 
Empedocles' own. It is used elsewhere of the Athenians, as autochthonous; Luc, 
Philops., 3; Poliochus, ap. Ath., B 60 c. Censorinus, 4, 8, perhaps confuses the modes 
of generation of the two periods. 

2 Arist., De Resp., 14, 477 a, 32; Theophr., Cans. Plant., i, 21, 5. 

3 Aet., v, 7, 1. 

4 Fr. 65 and 67; Arist., De Gen. An., A 1, 764 a, 1; De Part. An., B 2, 648 a, 25. 
This seems inconsistent with Censor., 6, 6, but the two notions must surely have been 
combined, since both are well attested; cf. Galen, ad Hippocr. Ep., vi, 48; Oribasius, 
ad Athen., hi, 78, 13, cited Diels, Vors., 83. Empedocles seems to have held that the 
members of the body in some sense existed in the seed; cf. Fr. 63; Arist., Gen. An., 
A 18, 722 b, 10; A 1, 764 b, 3 (cf. Censor., 5, 4). 

On the time required for the development of the embryo, cf. Aet., v, 21, 1; 18, 1; 
Theon., Smyr., 104, 1; Censor., 7, 5. The heart is the first organ to grow, Censor., 
6, 1; on the resemblance of offspring to parents, see Aet., v, n, 1; and to others Aet., v, 
12, 2; the explanation of twins and triplets, v, 10, 1. Other points concerning 
generation and birth are noted by Censor., 6, 10; cf. Fr. 68; Arist., Gen. An., A 8, 777 a, 
7; Soranus, Gynaec, i, 57 (Vors., 79). 

5 Aet., v, 27, 1. Should we associate with this the suggestion that a day was origin- 
ally nine months long, and conclude that all life had the same large scale ? Aet., v, 
18, 1. 

6 Fr. 128 and 130. 

7 It is not, to be sure, the universal tradition, as the Prometheus legend shows. 



72 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 

Empedocles' account of the inception and mode of operation of the 
breathing process, possesses an especial interest because one of the longest 
fragments that we possess deals with the subject. This passage, moreover, 
contains a most characteristic illustration, that of the child playing with a 
clepsydra. Furthermore, the doctrine connects suggestively with the theory 
of pores. The first inception of breathing is described by the Doxographers 
as due to the departure of moisture from the young organism and the rush- 
ing in of air to take the place made empty. After that the outward impulse 
of heat in the body drove out the air, causing expiration. The return of 
the air was the corresponding inspiration. 1 The present process is also 
described by the Doxographers in essential accordance with the account in 
Fragment ioo save that no account is taken of the fact that respiration takes 
place over the whole body and not simply through the nostrils. The cause 
of the expiration and inspiration is the rushing of the blood back to the 
heart and again to the surface of the body, alternately allowing the air to 
rush in through the pores of the skin, and forcing it out again. So a child 
playing with the clepsydra alternately fills it with water and air. Why 
two forms of inception of the breathing process should be given is not easy to 
explain. It seems to be an attempt to account for the starting of the 
process by causes recognized as operative elsewhere in the physical world. 
The impulsive power of fire has often been noted. The process, once 
started, would continue of itself or rather would be taken up like the 
vibration of a pendulum, by the air and blood combined. 2 

1 Aet., iv, 22, i. 

2 Fr. ioo. The clepsydra experiment of these lines is probably to be understood 
essentially as by Burnet, though in minor points his interpretation may be questioned. 
The clepsydra employed had a very small opening avXov wopdixos or irbpos (11. io and 
17) through which the water escaped, and at the other end several perforations through 
which it was filled by plunging it in water (rp-n/xara irvKvd, 1. 13; l<r6p.6s, 1. 19). Per- 
forations and not a large opening were used, we may conjecture, in order to prevent 
the entrance of foreign substances which would block the small orifice, or make the 
water flow from it unevenly. Dictionaries of antiquities usually describe the av\6s 
as a neck through which the clepsydra was filled, and the several openings as the 
avenue of escape. This is inherently improbable, for several openings would have 
no advantage over one in measuring the water as it escaped and would make the 
flow too rapid to be practicable in what was evidently a water-clock of small size. 
Aristotle, Probl., 914 b, 9 ff., experiments are made with a clepsydra apparently similar 
to this one. The use there of the word opd-q (11. 21 and 32) describing the clepsydra 
when the perforations are down and the neck up would seem to indicate that the 
perforations were the avenue of escape. But opd-q must refer, it would seem, to the 
position of the vessel when not in use. Possibly it had the general form of an ordi- 
nary urn, with the bottom perforated, so that it was by association of ideas thought 
of as inverted when the neck was down. The rpvKi\p.o.Ta. cannot have been the usual 



THE SECOND PERIOD 73 

Digestion seems to have been described as a form of putrefaction, 

outlet, for the reason already given, and further because the neck described by Aris- 
totle is too small to be a convenient means of filling the vessel. For one of the experi- 
ments described (11. 26 ff.) shows that its orifice was small enough for capillary 
attraction to prevent air inclosed in it from displacing water above, when the neck is 
turned downward. 

In the usual descriptions of ordinary water-clocks but one orifice for the escape 
of the water is mentioned. Cf. Schol. ad Arist, Vesp., 93; Suidas; Schol. ad Arist., 
Ach., 693 and Richter., Prol. ad Arist., Vesp., p. 134. The description of Aen. Poliorc. 
22, 25, is taken by Daremberg and Sagglio, Diet, des Antiq. to be a clepsydra with 
several openings, some of which may be stopped with wax to vary the rapidity of the 
flow; "on oevrait ou Ton bouchart avec des tampons de cire les trous d'echappement 
et l'on pouvait ainsi faire varier la duree de Pecoulement." But the passage reads: 
ravTTjv (7-771/ k\ e\f/v8pav) fxera^dWeip 5ta 5ex' rjfxepiav, /xaXXop de avTrjs KCK^pQadai to. 
e<r<i)dev, kclI ixa.Kpore'poiv p.ev yiyvo/x^ucov tu>v pvktwv acpaipetadat. rod KTjpov } 'Lva. ttX^ov vdiop 
X&PV, fipaxvTe'pojv 8e TrpiHnrXdcraeadai, lva e\aa<rov 5e"xV Tai - 

Wax must be spread on the inner surface of the vessel, to decrease its capacity 
(iva eXaaaov 8^xv Tai -)- If some of the orifices were stopped with wax, it would be 
done when the days were longer to prolong the time taken to empty the vessel, not 
when they were shorter. This device is here employed to regulate military watches 
during nights of varying length. 

In Empedocles' experiment the girl first plunges the vessel in water with her 
hand over the neck, then removes her hand, allowing the water to flow in and the 
air out (11. 10-15). Then taking the vessel out of the water, filled, she first keeps the 
neck closed, then opens it, letting the water flow rapidly out of the perforated end 
(11. 16-21). Diels complicates the second half of the experiment by supposing that 
the water only fills the body of the vessel, while air fills the neck, as in Aristotle, 11. 26 ff. 
The position of the clepsydra is reversed so that the neck is down. (Cf. Poet. Frag. 
Addenda.) In detail the interpretation affects the following phrases: 

L. 16, e%77 /card fitvdea x a ^ K °v, a natural periphrasis for "occupies the interior 
of the brazen vessel," Burnet, but by Diels translated "nur den Bauch des Erzes 
fiillt." 

LI. 18, 19, Diels: "die Luft die von aussen nach innen strebt" (he must mean the 
air in the neck of the vessel) "dass Nass an den Ausgang des engen, dumpf gurgelnden 
Halses zuriickdrangt, indem sie die Spitze (des Halses) besetzt halt." It is true 
that laQfxoto seems more appropriate to the neck than to the openings at the other 
end, yet it can well be used of the latter and the thought of the passage is simpler and 
more natural on that basis. Sturtz's emendation of laQprno to -qdp.olo is very attrac- 
tive, since Aristotle uses 7)0/z6s of this part of the vessel (1. 33). 

&Kpa Kpariivtav not well translated by Burnet, "pressing upon its surface." The 
language is figurative, conceiving the air as like a besieging enemy "holding the 
heights" of a fortified isthmus. The figure is carried out in £p6i<ei and 7rtf\as and 
constitutes a reason for retaining ladfwio. 

Ogle, following a suggestion of Stein, thinks it not improbable that the clepsydra 
of Empedocles and of the Probl. was the funnel-shaped nose of a watering pot. There 
seems to be no evidence in favor of this use of the term and the view can hardly be 
reconciled with the smallness of the av\6s as described by Aristotle. 



74 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 

perhaps by a daring metaphor. 1 Its dependence upon moisture was 
recognized. Growth was due to the presence of fire. 2 To the departure 
of fire from the body were due both sleep and death. 3 The proportions 
of the elements employed in the formation of various parts of the body are 
recorded. 4 Two forms of madness seem to have been observed, but the 
brief notice preserved to us concerning them possesses no general signifi- 
cance. 5 

PHYSICAL PHENOMENA 

Empedocles' suggestions upon detailed meteorological and physical 
phenomena have not the interest nor the significance of his physiological 
observations. A few of them should, however, receive notice here. 

Lightning and thunder are caused by fire that has been collected within 
the clouds from the rays of the sun. The hissing of its contact with the 
mist, as it forces its way from the clouds, is the thunder. 6 Lightning is, 
of course, the gleam of this fire. Such seems to be Aristotle's conception 
of the theory. 7 The account of the Doxography gives the impression that 
it is the falling of fire into the clouds, not its bursting out, which causes the 
lightning. But Aristotle's account is no doubt the more trustworthy. 

The oblique direction of winds, that is, for example, northwest or south- 
west instead of north or south, is due, as Zeller explains, to the complication 
caused by the tendency of the earth and air contained in the rising vapors 
to move in opposite directions. 8 

The seasons seem to be explained by the relation of the air in the lower 
atmosphere and the fire above it. Zeller supposes that the relation of the 
two hemispheres is meant, but this is hardly a possible meaning for the 
passage, and would be entirely inappropriate for the Stoics, who are 
classed with Empedocles as holding this view : E. koI ol Stohkoi ^ei/Awm 
fxkv ytveaOat tov de'pos i-n-iKpaTovvTos tyj ttvkvwo-ci els to avwrepw fita^o/xevov, 
Oepeiav Se tov -rrvpos, orav eis to Karwrepa) ^8ta^rai.9 

1 Pseud. Gal., Def. Med., 99 (xix, 372); Plato, Phaedo, 96 B. Milk is similarly 
described, Fr. 68, as well as sweat and tears, Aet, v, 22, 1; Plut, Quaest. Xat., 20, 2. 

2 Aet., v, 27, 1. 3 Aet., v, 24, 2, and 25, 4. 

4 Cf. Fr. 96; 98; Aet., v, 22, 1; and cf. p. 40 of this study. 

5 Cael. Aur., Morb. Chron., 1, 5. 

6 Arist, Meteor, /3 9, 369 b, 12; Aet., iii, 3, 7. 

7 Note also Aristotle's counter argument, loc. cit., and Alexander's commentary. 

8 Olymp. in Arist., Meteor, 349 a, 32; Zeller, 791, 2. The source of Burnet's 
remark, that wind is caused by the motion of the two hemispheres, is not apparent. It 
surely cannot be an inference from this passage. Burnet, p. 256. 

9 Aet., iii, 8, 1; Zeller, 788, 1; Tzetzes Exeg., ii, p. 42, 17, seems to describe these 



THE SECOND PERIOD 



75 



The influence of heat within the earth in the formation of rocks was 
remarked, as well as in the production of hot springs. 1 Streams of water, 
he seems to have thought, wound repeatedly around a given portion of fire, 
thus becoming thoroughly heated. 2 The sea contains sweet water as well 
as bitter, since fishes live therein. 3 

PORES AND EFFLUENCES 

The doctrine of pores and effluences has always had a somewhat 
isolated treatment in the accounts of Empedocles' philosophy. It is so 
difficult to correlate with other aspects of his thought that Diels even regards 
it as an anomaly in his system, borrowed, he thinks, from Leucippus. 4 
So significant a doctrine, he says " could not have sprung up from the soil 
of a system so superficial and lacking in independence as Empedocles', 
but must have grown from the deepest root of the materialism of Leucip- 
pus." No one could have arrived at the theory, he argues, without the 
hypothesis of empty space, which Empedocles denied. This reasoning 
is not altogether conclusive. The theory may be ultimately incompatible 
with the denial of a void, but it might quite readily be developed by one who 
held that view, either with the thought that the pores were filled with a fluid 
substance which yielded to the entering particles of matter, or without 
raising the question whether they were empty or full. 

The association of this doctrine by Plato and by the ancients generally 
with Empedocles' name, should in the absence of contrary evidence consti- 
tute a probability that it originated with him. 5 It seems to have had so 
definite a place and relation to certain aspects of his thought, that even if 
borrowed it must have become quite thoroughly his own. If, as seems 
likely, he left ambiguous whether the pores were empty or full, this would 
indicate that he formulated the doctrine in independence of the Atomists. 
Had he known their position, he could hardly have failed to approach that 
question. It is true that the theory cannot be correlated with all aspects of 

successive encroachments at an earlier and more tumultuous stage of the world's life. 
Kara yap 'E/xwedbicXia rbv {pvainbv ical fiera rb yijv <pavTJvai /ecu ddXaaaav oltcLktus en ra 
GTOixeia KeicLvTjTO, irork fikv rod irvpbs vvepviKuivTos xal KaracpXtyovros, ort 5e rrjs vdaTiv- 
dovs VTT€pp\v£'oij<Tr)s Kal KaraKXufoi/crTjs iTripporjs. 

T Arist, Probl., 24, 11, 937 a, 15; Plut., Prim. Frig., 19, p. 953 E. It is interesting 
to note in this connection that the hardening power of fire is probably responsible for 
the large proportion of it found in bone; Fr. 96; cf. Fr. 73. 

2 Seneca, Nat. Quaest., hi, 24; cf. Fr. 52. 

3 Aelian, Hist. An., ix, 64. 

4 Diels, Emp. u. Gorg., loc. cit.; cf. also Leucippus u. Detn. 

5 Plato, Meno, 76 C; Arist., DeGen. et Con., A 8, 324 b, $$ with Philop. commentary. 



76 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 

his thought, yet that may be due to the fact that it was worked out in relation 
to certain specific problems, and was applied only where it proved helpful. 

Though the doctrines of pores and effluences are supplementary, the 
theory of effluences seems to have had the longer history. The phenomenon 
of evaporation had always received much attention from the physicists, 
and is clearly a form of effluence. Heraclitus had called attention to the 
constant flowing away of particles from all objects. 1 In a sense Empedocles 
may be said, therefore, to have inherited this notion, though he developed 
its implications in many directions. 

The doctrine of pores implies effluences, though the reverse is not the 
case. Everything, according to this view, was provided with pores, just 
as everything sent forth effluences. All mixture, growth, and sensation 
were conditioned on the "symmetry of the pores," that is, upon such a 
relation of pores and effluences that the particles of one substance could 
enter the pores of another. 2 Varied as are the phenomena in connection 
with which it receives mention, its root seems to have been the problems 
of sense perception. Certainly it is here that it proved most fruitful. It is 
true that many isolated phenomena of mixture are ingeniously solved by 
it. The incompatibility of oil and water, for example, most liquids mixing 
so readily, 3 and the superior hardness of certain metallic compounds to 
their constituents, 4 are happily explained by the reciprocal correspondence 
of their pores and solid parts to one another. But the relation of the hypo- 
thesis to the doctrine of Love as the cause of mixture, is so little indicated, 
that one cannot readily believe the two theories were worked out in con- 
nection with the same problems. What meaning can possibly be given 
to the progressing and eventually complete mixture of all things in the 
Sphaeros in terms of the doctrine of the symmetry of pores ? In the 
ordinary processes of the world as at present organized, it is not so difficult 
to relate them. Symmetry of the pores is simply a negative condition of the 
unions Love effects, and the phrase "running through one another," 
describing the mixture of the elements, a phrase which occurs in close 
connection with mention of Love's powers, aptly describes the process of mix- 
ture through the fitting of pores and solid parts into one another. Yet very 

1 Cf. Heidel, Archiv XIX, 354. Whether the theory of effluences played so large a 
role as Dr. Heidel assigns it in early thought, is not easy to determine upon existing 
evidence. He has put beyond question the fact that it has a larger part than hitherto 
supposed. 

2 Theophr., De Sens., 12. 

3 Cf. Fr. 91; Theophr., De Sens., 12. 

4 Arist., De Gen. An., B 8, 747 b, 3; cf. also the explanations of reflections Aet. 
iv, 14, 1; of the magnet, Alex., Quaest. Nat., ii, 23 (Bruns, 72, 9). 



THE SECOND PERIOD 77 

slight reflection will show that difficulties confront us on every hand, if 
we attempt to press the theory very far in this connection. 

Its usefulness in explaining the processes of growth is not slight, though 
we are left wholly to inference as to the method of its employment. 1 But 
it well explains the puzzling fact of the transmission of particles to all parts 
of the organism. The pores are the channels of this transmission. The 
same is true of those processes of change which affect all parts of an object 
simultaneously. Decay, equally with growth, is explained by the theory. 
Here, however, effluences carried out through the pores are the important 
factor. In relation to the facts of sense perception the value of the theory 
is at first sight apparent, and here, as already noted, is its most important 
sphere. In this realm it is not improbable that Alcmaeon was Empedocles' 
forerunner. Apparently Alcmaeon did not universalize the doctrine, but 
thought only of pores as the channels of transmission of sensation to the 
brain, with him the seat of intelligence. 2 

The details of Empedocles' working out of the theory as a basis of sense- 
perception will be noticed later. 

It became clear very early in the history of thought, that the theory of 
pores led logically to atomism. Ancient writers repeatedly ascribe to 
Empedocles a sort of quasi-atomism, though in the earlier accounts it is 
stated as an inference which he himself did not draw. 3 And indeed this 
very fact is one of the reasons for concluding that the theory w r as something 
of an afterthought as applied to problems of mixture. For the pores seem 
to be thought of as tubes, not as simple interstices, which they must become 
so soon as employed with any thoroughness in explaining mixture. In the 
processes of sense perception they would naturally be thought of as tubes, 
as they certainly are in the account of the eye which has come down to us. 4 
The same is true of the description of breathing, wherein the fine tubes all 
over the body play an important part. 5 Breathing seems to be typical of 
a process going on through all nature, even in inanimate objects. Outside 
the realm of sense-perception the doctrine seems to have been employed 
chiefly to explain individual phenomena, and to have been generalized 

1 Only the fact is given in the passage of Theophrastus, loc. cit. 

2 Theophr., 26. 

3 Arist., Gen. et Corr., A 8, 325 b, 5; De Caelo, T 6, 305 a, 1; Galen in Hippocr., 
De Nat. Horn., i, 2 (K. xv, 32). 

4 Fr. 84, 9. 

5 Arist., De Gen. et Corr., A 8, 324 b, 26 clearly conceives the pores as tubes. Note 
the phrase, Kara aroixov, 1. 31. 



78 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 

without much regard to its efficacy in accounting for related facts, or to 
its compatibility with other theories. 1 

It has been suggested in the foregoing discussion, that perhaps Empedo- 
cles did not inquire whether the pores w r ere full or empty. This view T seems 
more than probable since Theophrastus implies it as a fact, and Aristotle 
assumes that to refute the doctrine he must refute both alternatives. 2 We 
have, to be sure, a late ancient testimony that they were filled w r ith a fine 
substance like air, 3 and Tannery has suggested the hypothesis that they 
were filled with Love. 4 Neither of these positions is in itself impossible, 
but the evidence just cited militates strongly against them. Tannery's 
view has no ancient evidence to support it, and seems somewhat fanciful. 

It is a remarkable fact that save in connection with the theory of pores, 
no occasion has arisen for mention of a problem, w T hich before Empedocles 
received some attention from the Eleatics, and soon after in the hands of 
the Atomists became a fundamental matter, the existence of a void. For 
Empedocles the question is evidently not one of paramount importance, for 
it receives slight notice in the accounts of his philosophy and in the extant 
fragments. By Aristotle and Theophrastus w r e are told that he denied the 
existence of empty space. 5 Gomperz doubts the -truth of this statement, 
but with hardly adequate reason. 6 It must be admitted that the lines 
often quoted from Empedocles himself to that effect are not so unequivocal 
as we could wish. They seem to have reference to the Sphaeros and not, as 
usually supposed, to an organic world. 7 Yet the statement made with 
reference to the indestructibility of the elements, "nothing is empty of them," 
seems to imply the absence of a void. 8 Confirmation has sometimes been 
sought in his undoubted recognition of the substantial character of air. 
Aristotle tells us that Anaxagoras and "others" attempted to prove the 

1 This impression is strongly conveyed by reading Theophrastus' account and 
criticism of Empedocles' theory of sense-perception, in which incidentally other appli- 
cations of the doctrine of pores are discussed. Theophr., De Sens., 1 to 24. Note in 
particular its happy employment as an explanation of the magnet, Alex. Aphr., Quaest. 
Nat., ii, 53. 

2 Theophr., 13; Arist., De Gen. et Corr., A 8, 326 b, 8 and 15. 

3 Philop., commentary on the passage of Arist. cited above. 

4 Tannery, p. 314. 

5 Arist., De Caelo, A 2, 309 a, 19; Theophr., De Sensu,. 13. 

6 Cf. Gomperz's note to p. 191. His only ground for doubt is the irreconcilability 
of this statement with other doctrines of Empedocles. 

7 Fr. 13 and 14. 

8 Fr. 17, 33. 



THE SECOND PERIOD 79 

non-existence of a void by experiments with inflated bags and clepsydras, 
which he says merely prove that "air is something. " J We have no reason 
to suppose that Empedocles is included in the indefinite "others" of this 
statement. Gomperz can hardly be right in supposing that the clepsydra 
experiment alluded to is the one described in Fragment ioo of Empedocles' 
poem. For this experiment is employed to illustrate the breathing process, 
and the substantiality of air is only incidentally illustrated by it. 2 Anaxa- 
goras' clepsydra experiment discussed in the Aristotelian Problemata is 
probably the one referred to. 

It is probable that Empedocles adopted the denial of empty space 
directly from the Eleatics. The difficulty of reconciling with it the theory 
of pores and effluences has been noted and was already recognized in anti- 
quity. It may, however, have been overlooked by Empedocles himself. 

PSYCHOLOGY 

There is nothing in Empedocles that could properly be called a definition 
of the soul. Aristotle sought in vain for such a definition, and apparently 
found no statements upon which to base one except the characterizations 
of the mode of knowing and perceiving. Consequently he entangles 
himself in a confusing and misleading attempt to define it in terms of the 
ratio in the mixture of the elements. 3 This attempt is an inference from 
the definition of certain substances in terms of the relative amounts of their 
constituents, and from the definition of mental activities in terms of the 
material constituents of the body. It is quite in the manner of Aristotle to 
draw this inference, but, so far as we know, it was not involved in Empedo- 
cles' own reflections. 

Both sense perception and thought, we are told, were explained material- 
istically. We must guard against taking this statement with its modern 
implications. Empedocles was not a materialist in the sense that would 
apply to one who had considered and rejected other alternatives. He was 
simply unable as yet to think in abstract terms. He pictured all things 
with sensuous imagery, because he belonged to an age which could not do 
otherwise. It would be a great mistake to ascribe to him the gross literalism, 
or the deliberate ignoring of certain aspects of experience, that goes with 
modern materialism. He had no prejudice in favor of a materialistic way 
of looking at things. Indeed, his thought is almost ready to break the 
bonds of its enslavement to that point of view, and he comes at least to the 
verge of the conception of pure spirit. And just because thoughts of spirit- 

1 Arist, Phys., A 6, 213 a, 22. 2 ' Arist, Probl., 914 b, 10. 

3 De An., A 4, 408 a, 13. 



80 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 

ual beings were new thoughts into which men were for the first time groping 
their way, he could employ them, unconscious of contradiction with other 
aspects of his philosophy, in a way that at a later time would be impossible. 
So, for example, he can describe Love in terms that approach an immaterial 
existence, and yet speak of her later as having length and breadth. So, too, 
the divinity of the third book of the Physics may be apprehended in terms 
that would be apt expressions of a spiritual religion, without occasioning 
himself or his hearers the feeling expressed by Diels of its inconsistency with 
the "atheistic materialism" of the earlier part of the Physics. 1 Inten- 
tionally atheistic Empedocles is not, any more than intentionally material- 
istic, though he might well seem both in some portions of his writings, to 
readers even a hundred years later. When we read, "for from these 
[elements] come all the things that were, and are, and shall be, yea, even 
the gods who live long lives and are exalted in honor" we are inclined to 
think it a definite and conscious denial of spiritual existences. But the 
gods of myth had never been conceived as immaterial. The passage 
denies simply as great a variety of kinds of material existences as were 
ordinarily assumed. The feeling after a conception of spirit would be like 
the first modern thoughts concerning the luminiferous ether, something 
superadded to the substances previously conceived, but not thought of as 
necessitating a revision of the notions of matter already held. 2 

That all the notices and fragments that have come down to us concern- 
ing sense-perception and thought are couched in material terms is, then, 
clearly to be expected, but we are not warranted in drawing from them for 
Empedocles the skeptical and conservative estimates of our powers of 
knowledge, that such statements in modern times would imply. We are 
not even justified in expecting him to hold consistently to what would seem 
an inevitable consequence, the mortality of the soul. 

Between thought and sensation there is no clear differentiation in this 

respect. Both are equally material. We perceive objects by the like 

element in us, we think with the blood, 3 and the blood is but an effective 

mingling of the elements. There is clearly no suggestion here of differentia- 

* Diels, Sitz. d. Berl. Ak., 1898. 

2 There is one line of the Physics which seems to leave a loophole for existences not 
formed from the elements. Fr. 23, 10, with its significant 7^, limits what is said to the 
things that are perceptible ( SijXa) to us. 

3 Fr. 105; Plato, Phaedo, 96 B; Theophr., De Sens., 10. Cf. the statement, 
clearly colored by late modes of thought, in Aet., iv, 5, 8. The view is mentioned 
with no name, Arist., De An., A 2, 405 b, 1. 

We need not suppose other parts of the body beside the blood to be without think- 
ing power. The blood is simply its chief medium. 



THE SECOND PERIOD 



8l 



tion of the two faculties. They are on precisely the same basis. Yet they 
are not identified in a fully conscious way, limiting our knowledge to that 
gained through sense perception. 1 The problem of their relation simply 
is not raised. They are differentiated only to the extent that common 
language distinguished them. Indeed we find hardly the degree of clearness 
that was present in Parmenides' thought. Empedocles is just on the verge 
of becoming fully aware of the psychological distinction between the two. 2 
To ask in which truth is found is, therefore, a question that as yet has no 
meaning. 3 

It is clear that the attempts of late Greek thinkers to classify Empedo- 
cles' thought under the two heads, sense knowledge and rational knowledge, 
were mistaken. The statements made regarding one have their clear 
implications for the other. When we are told that by earth we see earth, 
we may rightly conclude that by earth we think and know earth. Crude, 
indeed, is this principle of knowledge of like by like, and we have no evi- 
dence that it was supplemented by any adequate consideration of the 
conditions of knowing aught save the material constituents of things. 4 
We are told, to be sure, that in the blood is found the most complete and 
perfect mixture of the elements, with perhaps some little thought of power 
thereby secured to know substances as mingled. 5 But the poet is not yet 
aware of the great mystery of thought, and, with other early thinkers, 
overlooks it in favor of the absorbing problem of the crude material condi- 
tions of sense perception. How to get the object into the mind, or better 
how to establish connection between the thing outside and the blood or 
brain, that is for him and his contemporaries the great problem. And at 

1 Arist., De An., V 3, 427 a, 26; Met., T 5, 1009 b, 12 clearly are misleading. 

2 The statement of the Doxographers, iv, 5, 12, is clearly inferential. 

3 It is hardly just to describe his position as "hopeless vacillation" on this point, as 
does Diels, Berl. Sitz., 1884, 343- He is said, Dox., iv, 9, 1, to have declared the senses 
false. Diels seems to accept this as Empedocles' intent, but an intent which he was not 
strong enough to carry out. 

4 Cf. Arist., De An., A 5, 409 b, 31. 

s This thought is developed in the most naively literal way. The various kinds of 
minds, stupid, bright, impulsive, and slow, are explained by very simple and obvious 
differences in the way the particles are put together, their size, etc. Theophrastus, De 
Sens., § 11, tells us that skill of one member, the hand, or the tongue, is due to an 
especially effective mixture of the elements in that part of the body. Fr. 1 10 is a striking 
instance of the same literalism in looking at the most highly developed philosophic 
thought. We are told that if we do not cultivate such thoughts without distraction, 
they will abandon us "each seeking its like." The explanatory words follow "for 
all things have a share in thought." The error of Burnet and Stein in referring this 
passage to plants is too obvious to need discussion. 



82 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 

this point the theory of pores has, as already noted, great significance. 
Not only man's body, but all objects, are pierced with pores or passages 
through which enter the effluences from objects. These pores vary 
greatly, and because in each of our sense organs the pores are capable of 
receiving only a particular sort of effluences, particles that are too large 
being kept out, while smaller ones pass through without touching, there- 
fore each sense has its particular character and specialized work. 1 No 
differentiation is here provided between animate and inanimate things. 
This constitutes no objection to the theory, at least from Empedocles' point 
of view, though Theophrastus thought otherwise. 

The symmetry of pores and effluences was very simply conceived. This 
is evident not only from all the notices that have come down to us, but from 
the general character of Empedocles' thought upon related problems. We 
may question Beare's suggestion of an analogy or relationship to Aristotle's 
subtle doctrine of the fxeaoTrjs or Aoyos of each aladrjTrjpiov by virtue of 
which it grasps the form without the matter of the thing perceived. 2 

It is characteristic of Empedocles' loose mode of thinking that the two 
bases of perception that have been mentioned, are not correlated. Sym- 
metry of pores certainly cannot always imply that there are similar consti- 
tuents, yet both condition sense perception. It is probable that both were 
thought of as forms of "likeness" and hence as substantially the same. 
Detailed analysis did not go far enough to reveal the fact that the two 
forms of likeness are essentially distinct, and therefore need definite correla- 
tion. 3 

SIGHT 

Of the individual senses, sight proves the most interesting though by 
no means the simplest. The eye's structure is somewhat fully described 
in a fragment that has come down to us, and this account is supplemented 
by a passage of Theophrastus. We shall quote these passages. Empedo- 
cles, Fragment 84: 

As when a man intending to make a journey gets ready a light, kindling a 
beam of blazing fire, a lantern to keep off all sorts of winds. It scatters the breath of 

1 Theophr., De Sens., 7; Arist, De Gen. et Corr., A 8, 324 b, 26. It is surely a 
mistake that this theory of sense perception is attributed to Parmenides, Aet., iv, 9, 6. 
Possibly Theophrastus' use of the word avfifxeTpla in another sense in discussing 
Parmenides' view of sense perception is responsible for the error. De Sens., 1. 

2 Beare, p. 204, 1. 

3 The defect is noted by Theophrastus, though not in exactly the form in which we 
have stated it. The symmetry of pores, he says, practically superseded the other prin- 
ciple in the detailed working out of sense perception; De Sensu, 15. Plato reveals in 
many places the liability even in his own day to confusions of this sort. 



THE SECOND PERIOD 83 

the sweeping blasts, while the light, inasmuch as it is finer, leaps forth and gleams 
along the threshold with unwearied rays. Even so then, the primeval fire inclosed 
within the membranes, concealed in these thin coverings, lurked within the round 
pupil. The membranes are pierced throughout with passages divinely fashioned, 
which keep out the mass of water that lies around, while they let the fire through, 
inasmuch as it is finer. 

Theophrastus tells us : 

He says that within it [the eye] is fire, while inclosing it are earth and air, 
through which the fire passes like the light in lanterns inasmuch as it is fine. 
The pores of fire and water alternate, and by the pores of fire white things are 

perceived, by those of water, black things The colors are brought to 

the sight by effluences. 

Presumably the earth and air form the substance of the membranes 
spoken of in the fragment of Empedocles quoted above. It is hardly 
necessary to emend by adding water to earth and air, with Diels, or to inter- 
pret air as mist, with Burnet, in order to prepare for the pores of water to be 
mentioned. For water is clearly not correlated with earth and air in the 
structure of the eye, but it has an especial function. Theophrastus has 
perhaps taken its presence for granted because it seemed so obvious. 
Later in the passage arjp should be interpreted not as mist but atmospheric 
air, which contains moisture. 1 The description is not in all points so clear 
as we could wish. It is surprising that we find fire and water set apart 
from the other two elements in the function of sight. The antithesis of 
light and dark alone seems to be taken account of, fire to perceive light 
things and water dark. By the Doxographers, to be sure, it is stated that 
four colors were recognized, corresponding to the four elements. 2 But 
Theophrastus criticizes Empedocles for not taking account of other colors 
beside white and black, and ascribes the identical four here enumerated 
to Democritus. 3 It seems not unlikely, therefore, that the later tradition 
was at fault. If the analogy of the four colors to the four elements was 
drawn by Empedocles, it must have been a fancy left unrelated to the theory 
of vision as a whole. The employment of the simple antithesis of fire and 
water in the structure of the eye, strongly favors the view of Diels, that 
Empedocles was indebted to Alcmaeon for this part of his theory. We 
know that Alcmaeon also regarded the eye as made up of fire and water. 4 

1 Theophrastus, 8 and 14; cf. supra, p. 32. 2 Aet, i, 15, 3. 

3 For the ascription of these colors to Democritus see 73 ff. For Theophrastus' 
criticism of Empedocles, see 17. 

4 Cf. Diels, Emp. u. Gorg., loc. cit.; Theophr., 26. 

It is noteworthy that elsewhere the simple antithesis between heat and cold or, 



84 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 

Another puzzling factor in this description is the fact that fire is spoken 
of as passing out through the pores like the light in lanterns. How does 
this accord with the statement that effluences from objects enter the pores 
of the sense organ and are thus perceived ? Zeller suggests, and in this he 
is followed by Gomperz and others, that the fire and the effluences from 
objects meet outside of the eye, 1 but there seems no adequate evidence 
for this position or sufficient reason for doubting Aristotle's implication that 
the two modes of vision were not related. 2 It is futile to attempt to supple- 
ment these accounts by conjecture. It is not impossible that the notion of 
fire as going out from the eye was carried no farther than the simple adop- 
tion of the analogy between the eye and a lantern. Just as the interior of 
the ear is like a bell, so the interior of the eye is like a lantern. Such an 
analogy between two things closely related, without careful discrimination 
how far the analogy extends, is quite in the manner of Empedocles. The 
power of a light when brought into a dark place, to reveal what before was 
invisible is a most astounding phenomenon, taken simply. The confusion 
between the function of light in revealing objects, and of sight beholding 
them is a most natural one. 3 Yet the analogy gives no hint of the process 
involved. Quite possibly Empedocles let the correlation of this notion 
with the theory of pores and effluences take care of itself. Against the 
attempts to harmonize the two doctrines, we have, in addition to Aristotle's 
statement, the implication of Theophrastus that the effluences entered the 
eye. It is not a little remarkable that Theophrastus' account gives no hint 
of the fact of fire passing out from the eye. This could hardly occur, had 
Empedocles developed that suggestion fully. 4 It is noteworthy, too, that 
Theophrastus and others in explaining Plato's theory of vision through 
fire emitted from the eye, never give any hint that he was anticipated by 

heat and moisture is employed. Cf. Fr. 62, with the use of afuportpuv in 1. 5. This 
is probably due to the dependence of Empedocles upon others in physiological matters. 
Arist., Met., A 4, 985 a, 33 notes the tendency to employ the elements as two instead of 
as four. 

1 Zeller, p. 801. In his note Zeller refutes the theories which make the effluences 
meet inside of or on the surface of the eye. 

Burnet, pp. 267, 268 mentions the two modes of vision without indicating this incon- 
sistency. 

2 Arist., De Sensu, 2, 437 b, 23; Aet., iv, 13, 4, is a restatement of Aristotle. 

3 The active function of fire in many natural processes should here be recalled. 
Note especially its function in reflections, presently to be indicated. 

4 Theophrastus, to be sure, paraphrases the lantern passage, but without implying 
that the fire passes outward in the act of seeing. Beare, p. 20, fails to observe this 
fact and supposes Theophrastus' account to contain a contradiction. 



THE SECOND PERIOD 85 

Empedocles. 1 There is, indeed, no possible method of making effective 
use of this suggestion on the hypothesis that only like can perceive like, and 
in Fragment 109 vision in particular is said to be based on the principle of 
similarity. 

Little interest or significance attaches to the further observations pre- 
served to us regarding vision. Among them are the suggestion that gray 
eyes contain more fire, dark eyes more water, 2 that the former see better at 
night, the latter by day, because their deficiency is supplemented from the 
medium outside. An excess of either element causes the pores of the other 
to be smeared over, and occasions poor eyesight. The best eyes have a 
combination of both in equal proportions. 3 In reflections in mirrors the 
effluences collected on the surface of the mirror are driven back by the fire 
streaming out. 4 Transparent objects contain numerous pores but no ade- 
quate differentiation of them from other objects is made clear. 5 

HEARING 

Empedocles' theory of hearing seems not yet to have been clearly 
understood, and the two accounts transmitted to us are meager and con- 
fused. These accounts are as follows. The text is that of Diels with his 
proposed corrections. 

Theophr., 9: tyjv 8' dKorjv oltto twv €<ra)0ev ytvecrOat i[/6<pu)v, orav 6 dyjp wo 
rrjs cpwvrjs KivrjOels yj^rj cvtos * itxnrep yap etvat KwSwva rcuv tcrwv rf\oiv rrjv 
aKorjv, rjv wpoaayopevet aapKivov 6£ov ■ Kivovp.evrjv Se ttclUiv tov dipa 7T/oos tol 
(TTepea /cat 7rotctv rJX ov ' 

This passage is translated by Beare: 

Empedocles says that hearing results from the sounds coming from with- 
out, 6 whenever the air, being set in motion by the voice, rings within [the ear]. 
For the organ of hearing, which he terms "the fleshy bone," is a sort of gong which 
rings internally. The air when it is set moving, beats against the solid parts, and 
thus causes the ringing sound. 

Aet., iv, 16, I : 'E. T-qv aKorjv yiveo-Ocu Kara TrpovrrTOicriv 7rvevp.aTO<s t<o 
XovS/owSei, oirep cprja-lv i£r}prr}(r6ai ivros tov o>tos kwScdvos Slkyjv atwpov/xevov 

KCLL TU7TTO/ACVOV. 

1 A close approximation to Plato's view is ascribed to Hipparchus, by some to 
the Pythagoreans and to Parmenides, but not to Empedocles. Aet., iv, 13, 9, 10. 

2 Arist., De Gen. An., E 1, 779 b, 15. 

3 Theophr., 8. 4 Aet., iv, 14, 1. 

5 Arist., De Gen. et Corr., A 8, 324 b, 29. 

6 Beare follows here the first edition of Vorsokratiker, which kept the MSS 
ci-iadev. Diels now accepts Karsten's emendation eawdev. 



86 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 

Beare's translation is as follows: 

Empedocles teaches that hearing is caused by the impact of the air-wave 
against the cartilage which is suspended within the ear, oscillating, as it is struck, 
like a gong. 

In the first passage one or two points need consideration. In the first 
line the manuscripts provide no subject for rjxv- Diels, probably rightly, 
supplies 6 arjp. Instead of Kiv-qOeCs we find in the manuscripts KwrjOev, 
which can hardly be satisfactorily construed. Diels had formerly sug- 
gested KLvrjOfj (Dox., 501, 13). The reading lawv, later, is questioned by 
Diels, but gives about as good sense Diels's abandoned conjecture taoidzv, 
which Beare follows; Translate " echoes that resemble the sounds out- 
side." 1 Further, we may interpret Kivov/xevrjv "when this organ of 
hearing [the bell] is set in motion, it causes the air to beat against the solid 
parts of the ear and produces an echo. " Finally, if we retain the manu- 
script reading for Empedocles' characterization of this bell, we shall inter- 
pret it " fleshy growth," which is surely as appropriate as "fleshy bone," 
an interpretation wherein again Beare follows an abandoned conjecture of 
Diels. Taken in strictness the passage states the organ of hearing, tyjv okotjv, 
this fleshy growth, and the bell, to be one and the same. In the Doxographic . 
passage xov8pa>8ei m ay be a later blundering attempt to define this fleshy 
growth. Theophrastus' account is certainly the more trustworthy one and 
it contains nothing else that could be so defined. Possibly the tympanic 
membrane itself is meant, which transmits the sound from the outer air 
to the air of the inner ear, causing an echo there. 2 The walls of the tym- 
panic cavity are chiefly of bone, and they may be the solid parts, to. areped, 
of Theophrastus' description. These solid parts cannot be the bell itself, 
and hence the passage cannot, on any hypothesis, be reconciled with the 
Doxographic description. This need not surprise us, the Doxographic 
accounts being so condensed and in subjects like this so often missing the 
point of the theory involved. 

If the tympanic membrane was observed by Empedocles, its comparison 
to a bell is just as appropriate as its later comparison to a drum. By a 
bell we should understand a gong struck from the outside, not a bell with a 
clapper. Zeller's insistence that a trumpet is meant has no support and 
is admittedly contrary to Theophrastus' evidence. 3 

1 Beare, 96, 1, suggests that there may be in fouv the implication that "there are 
sounds that we cannot hear, as there are colors that we cannot see, though other crea- 
tures may see and hear them. " This seems, however, very doubtful. 

2 Cf. Philop., De An., p. 355, 17, which gives some help to the understanding of 
the thought here suggested. 

3 Theophr., De Sensu, 21. 



THE SECOND PERIOD 87 

The theory of Empedocles is very close to that of Alcmaeon, a fact that 
is not surprising in view of the indebtedness we have seen reason to assume 
in other portions of Empedocles' system. 

The naivete of the notion that hearing is explained if once we have the 
external sounds repeated within the ear is remarked by Theophrastus. 1 
It is, however, a mode of reasoning very persistent in its hold upon the 
human mind. 

On any interpretation of these passages, the doctrine of effluences and 
pores has incomplete application, yet the divergence in principle is not so 
great from Empedocles' standpoint. The sound moving toward the ear 
represents the effluence. The principle that like perceives like is met 
nearly enough for his purposes, we may believe, by regarding the act of 
hearing as an echo or repetition of the sound. This is not exact thinking 
but it is not more inexact than we should expect. 

SMELL 

Smell seems to be, of all the senses, the one to which the doctrine of 
pores and effluences most readily applies. Not that the psychological 
problems involved are explained. That we have ceased to expect. But 
odor is obviously an effluence which passes through the air to the inner 
surface of the nostrils. The power of dogs to follow a trail by means of 
odors imperceptible to man, is evidence that effluences are more universal 
than we are at first inclined to suppose. Fragment 101 reads: " Tracking 
with their nostrils the minute particles from the bodies of animals (and the 
odors) which are shed from the feet upon the tender grass." The close 
connection of smell with breathing is observed, and the fact that labored 
breathing or catarrhal troubles affect the sense of smell. Those animals 
that breath the most vigorously have the keenest sense of smell. Most 
odors, it is thought, come from bodies that are fine and light in weight. 2 

TOUCH AND TASTE 

Theophrastus tells us that no special account was given by Empedocles 
of the sense of touch and taste. 3 This was perhaps because, roughly 
speaking, their nature from this point of view is obvious. Certainly in the 
case of taste, the function of the pores is clear, though it might be questioned 
whether the particles which enter them would in strictness be called efflu- 
ences. 

1 Ibid., 25; Aet., iv, 16, 2. 

2 Theophr., 9. Cf. the criticism, § 19. See also Fr. 102; Aet., iv, 17, 2. 

3 Sees. 9 and 20. 



88 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 

Regarding flavors a few hints have come down to us, but they seem to 
have found place in the description of the growth of plants with their vari- 
ously flavored fruits, and perhaps of animals, and not in connection with 
the theories of sense perception. 1 

OTHER PSYCHOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS 

Likeness is the basis of pleasure, unlikeness of pain. 2 This accords 
well with the tendency to regard likeness as a basis of attraction, but is not 
strictly consistent with the view that like perceives like, for pain surely 
involves perception. This difficulty, "however, need not have been re- 
marked. 

Fragment 107, on one interpretation, ascribed feelings of pleasure and 
pain to all things. This interpretation is not necessary, yet the idea would 
not surprise us when intelligence has been declared to be universal. 3 . 

Unsatisfactory as is the understanding we have reached of the details of 
perception as explained by Empedocles, our survey is sufficient to make 
clear what is after all more important than the missing data, namely that 
the processes of sense perception are beginning to occupy the minds of 
Greek thinkers very seriously. The problems raised are physical and 
physiological primarily, not psychological. The only really important 
exception recorded, is an observation borrowed from Parmenides to the 
effect that thought changes with bodily structure. 4 Gomperz perhaps 
gives Empedocles too much credit in characterizing him as the one who 
led the way to the recognition of the subjective factor in sense perception 
and its relativity to the individual. 

1 Water is said to contain all sorts of flavors, which are usually imperceptible 
because the particles are so small. The significance of this remark in relation to the 
growth of plants is apparent, Arist., De Sensu, 4, 441 a, 3. We may perhaps associate 
with this the remark that wine is water which has undergone a process of putrefaction 
inside the bark, Fr. 81, and that the sea contains sweet water as well as bitter. Aelian, 
Hist. An., ix, 64. 

2 Theophr., 9, which seems to mean that the similarity is in the elements constitut- 
ing the part of the body which feels pleasure or pain; cf. Theophr., 16; Aet., v, 28, 1. 
The text of the latter passage is hopelessly confused. We gain from it the additional 
notice that desire springs from the lack of the material elements needed by the animal 
that feels desire. Kara rets tWetyeis twv airoTekotivTuv ^Kaarov aToixeliav. Cf. also 
Aet., iv, 9, 14, and 15. 

3 We know from Caelius Aurel., Morb. Chron., i, 5, that the subject of insanity 
received some consideration, but we are unable to gain any satisfactory notion from 
this brief mention. 

4 Fr. 106 and 108; Parmenides, Fr. 16. 



THE PURIFICATIONS 

The contrast in temper between the Physics and the Purifications has 
given rise to many theories about the relation of the two works. This 
contrast is due partly to the difference in theme, but it extends to irrecon- 
cilable contradictions on certain points. Bidez and Diels have felt these 
contradictions so keenly that both conceive it impossible that the two works 
could have been written in the same period of the poet's life. The opposing 
views put forth by the two men have been noticed in another connection, 
but may again be briefly stated. Bidez has imaginatively constructed a 
romantic biography of the poet, picturing him in youth, at the time of his 
brilliant political career, composing the Purifications, in the preface of 
which he addresses the people of Akragas with such lofty pride, resting so 
confidently upon his divine claims and exalted powers. Late in life, in 
banishment, deserted by friends and deprived of influence, he addresses 
in his loneliness the Physics to his only friend Pausanias. The tempered 
rationalism and scientific acumen of this work, contrasting strikingly with 
the religious enthusiasm and even extravagance of the Purifications, reveals 
the sobering influence of adversity, and of years of lonely study and reflec- 
tion upon nature. 

Diels, sharing to the full Bidez' conviction of the fundamental contrast 
between the two works, finds incredible the psychological development out- 
lined by Bidez. 1 Both writers are unable to discover any conclusive evi- 
dence on the point other than psychological probability. 2 History fails 
to give us, Diels believes, an instance of a man in his youth playing the part 
of a religious wonder-worker and magician, in his old age developing into a 
scientific scholar of so skeptical and empirical a temper. 

Both these discussions attempt too extensive a reconstruction on a 
slight basis of fact. Either line of psychical development is conceivable, 
and there is little doubt that historical parallels for either could be found. 
But neither one seems necessitated by the facts. The contrast in temper 
between the two works, considerable as it is, is by no means great enough 
to prove that a long interval of time must have elapsed between their com- 
position. Extravagant claims are not absent from the Physics. Fragment 
in certainly claims much when it promises power to stop adverse winds 

i Diels, Site. d. Berl. Ak., 1898, 396 ff. 

2 Diels argument, that the use of N«kos conventionally in the Purifications is 
indication of the later date for that work, is not without force. Cf. Fr. 115, 14. 



90 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EHPEDOCLES 

and drought, to avert old age, and even "to bring back from Hades a 
man's might. " Diels makes the astonishing claim that no more is promised 
here than is perfectly consistent with a scientific conservatism, "nicht 
mehr als das, was auch heutzutage die Wissenschaft ihren Adepten ver- 
spricht; die Gesetze der Natur mitzutheilen urn dadurch sich zu ihren 
Herrn zu machen. " The promise of power to waken the dead, he 
interprets as referring merely to apparent death. If one can accept this 
reasoning, he will find in Diels's position no insuperable difficulties. 1 

The placing of the fragments describing the deity 2 in the Purifications 
instead of the Physics, where they have hitherto been found, is obviously an 
integral part of Diels's argument, having as its motive the presenting of a 
purer contrast between the two works. The testimony of Tzetzes that they 
belong to the third book of the Physics, has not, to be sure, overwhelming 
weight, and Diels may be right in making the change. Yet the case is not 
proven by the fact that the physical system of the first two books has no 
place for such a theology. 3 Fragment 131, moreover, seems out of place 
in its present position. The change of subject is here not so marked as 
the tone of the passage implies. 

Burnet and Rohde have gone nearly as far in attempting to reconcile 
the religious and physical doctrines of Empedocles, as Bidez and Diels in 
contrasting them. Burnet follows Hippolytus in identifying the god who 
is only a "sacred intelligence" with the Sphaeros. 4 Rohde recognizes 
more adequately than he the contrast in temper between the two works, but 
he also finds place for this doctrine in the physical system. 5 The supreme 
divinity is a part of the Sphaeros when Love is in control, but when the 
Sphaeros is dissolved he exists independently, or rather is divided by 
Strife into individual daemons who are exiles and fugitives from the 
godhead. 

Burnet's position is clearly irreconcilable with the description of this 
deity in the last two lines of Fragment 134, though the similarity of the first 
three lines to the characterization of the Sphaeros in the Physics makes it 

1 A further bond of connection in temper between the Physics and the Purifica- 
tions may be seen in the exordium to the former work. Regarding the truth as holy, 
and not to be revealed to mortals beyond a certain point is distinctly in the spirit of the 
religious mystic. 

2 Fr. 131 to 134. 

3 Human thought, in a period not yet fully conscious of the antithesis of matter 
and spirit, could admit such a contradiction where a later age could not. Cf. p. 80. 

4 Hipp., Re}., vii, 29; Fr. 134. 
s Rohde, p. 480, n. 1. 



THE PURIFICATIONS 91 

tempting. Rohde's position is ingenious, but not supported by sufficient 
evidence to make it acceptable. 1 

Another religious doctrine of Empedocles which is difficult to bring into 
accord with the Physics is the theory of transmigration of souls. Rohde's 
view here is worked out with even more acumen and pains, and is rooted in 
ancient religious tradition. The thinking powers which Empedocles identi- 
fies with the blood, are a part of the physical soul, which dies with the body. 
The immortal soul is the soul-daemon of Homer, which leaves the body and 
passes successively through the various phases of mortal existence. It is 
now a fish, now a man, now a bush, now a god. This soul-daemon, as 
already suggested, is a part of the divine intelligence, an intelligence that 
is divided by Strife into many individuals. Ultimately it will return after 
purification to its source. When the Sphere recurs, all these soul-daemons 
will once more become one with their divine origin. 2 This hypothesis 
furnishes the best basis that has been proposed for reconciling the contra- 
dictions noted, and has won the unqualified assent of Gomperz; yet decisive 
evidence is lacking. The analogy drawn with the "soul-daemons" of 
Homer and others is a happy one, but the relation assumed between these 
^dividual " daemons" and the universal intelligence, as well as the Sphaeros, 
seems highly improbable. 

Burnet interprets this doctrine as he does the divinity of the Purifications, 
materialistically, and thus removes its contradiction with the Physics. 
All Empedocles needs, Burnet says, " would be amply provided for by the 
reappearance of the same corporeal elements in different combinations. 3 
Fragment 15 of the Physics fits in well with this interpretation, yet it does 
not necessarily imply the survival of personal identity, and it is not easy to 
see how any means of preserving it could be provided on this basis. Bur- 
net seems to overlook the real problems involved, but his view furnishes 
a possible alternative to that of Rohde. 

The exact degree of discrepancy between the two works of Empedocles 
will probably never be known. The data are not at hand for a sufficiently 
complete reconstruction of the thought of either poem. In any case the 
inconsistencies are not psychologically surprising, however great be the 
irritation they occasion in logical minds. It is common enough at all times 

1 Zeller, p. 806, recognizes the impossibility of fully reconciling the two works. 

2 We may note that the doctrine of recollection. dvdfj.vri<rii, is ascribed to Empedo- 
cles in this connection, but without adequate ground. 

Against Rohde's supposition that it is the soul-daemon which has the philosopher's 
"Tiefblick," Frag, no is conclusive. The passage has to do with our cultivation of 
philosophical thoughts, yet the phraseology at the end is materialistic. 

3 Burnet, p. 271. 



92 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 

to find religious and scientific interests which are mutually exclusive, per- 
sisting side by side, and not infrequently both of them finding literary 
expression. In Empedocles' time the demand for logical unity and con- 
sistency was doubtless less insistent than later. Certainly no one can fail 
to recognize in him individually a temper less logical than in other thinkers 
of his own time, notably Parmenides and Anaxagoras; and even in Par- 
menides we find the "way of opinion" side by side with the "way of 
truth." 

Not only is it hopeless to attempt to ascertain the precise degree of incon- 
sistency between the Purifications and the Physics, but it is equally useless 
to search for the exact temper in which the Purifications was written. 
Certain obvious things may be said of it. Its motive in the main is not 
philosophical nor scientific. It is evidently much more closely bound up 
than is the Physics with its author's career as wonder-worker and religious 
reformer, and is intended to further the brilliant success referred to in the 
opening lines, where he describes himself as a god, receiving acclaim and 
divine honors from throngs of men and women. To what extent did 
the author of these lines care whether he was consistent or not ? Did he 
cast aside a work previously written as inadequate, in the light of the more 
dazzling truth he now beheld ? Did he adopt the religious ideas of the 
Orphic cult without fully believing them, because of their efficacy with the 
multitude ? If he did so adopt them, was his motive a desire to benefit his 
fellow-men, or to further his own popularity and ascendency over their 
minds ? Probably none of these questions will ever be answered. They 
have been framed in this connection simply to suggest the degree of our 
ignorance. It is difficult enough to judge the work of a man in whom some 
elements of the charlatan are present, when we possess his works. It is 
clearly impossible to base on a few scattered fragments and notices a stable 
reconstruction. 

It is interesting to notice the points of contact with Pythagoreanism, not 
only in the doctrine already mentioned, the transmigration of souls, but in 
the practical prescriptions enjoined, such as the refraining from the eating 
of meat, a natural deduction from the doctrine of transmigration. At this 
point the disregard for logical consistency is strikingly apparent. The 
reasons that make the sacrificing and eating of animals a sin, would be quite 
as cogent against the eating of any living thing, or if we take into our reckon- 
ing the teaching of the Physics, of anything whatsoever. This prescription 
as well as the refraining from the use of beans, and from the laurel, evidently 
has to do with the attempt to escape the curse that attends our birth. We 
seem to be in a distinctly more religious atmosphere than that attending the 






THE PURIFICATIONS 93 

similar prescriptions of Pythagoras, 1 the dominant suggestion being, not 
preparation for philosophical pursuits, but ritualistic purification. This 
fact confirms the conclusion elsewhere reached, that he was perhaps more 
indebted to the Orphic cult than to the Pythagoreans. How far the points 
of contact are ideas and observances taken by both from the Orphics, we 
can hardly hope at present to learn. If the spiritualistic deity of Fragments 
133 and 134 be really the Apollo of the Orphics, which now seems very 
likely, 2 we can more readily understand its inconsistency with the body of 
Empedocles' thought than if both were independent conclusions. 3 

It is strange that this view of the deity was so long regarded as an 
adaptation of Xenophanes' teaching. The polemic against anthropo- 
morphism may well be borrowed, but the deity of Xenophanes is distinctly 
pantheistic, while the " sacred mind that flashes through the whole universe 
with swift thoughts" is not necessarily even monotheistic. 

The lot of the soul that has sinned, is a dismal and unhappy one. It 
must wander in consequence of sin for thrice ten thousand seasons, cast 
from one element to another, from one incarnation to another, without 
finding peace. 4 This earth seems now the special abode of sorrow. The 
words in w T hich are described the poet's own sufferings and laments upon 
entering upon this life, have profoundly impressed many readers. 5 In the 
distant past was a time when life was better than now, when men wor- 
shiped, not the present gods, but Kypris, and when her kindly spirit every- 
where prevailed. 6 Those who follow the religious practices enjoined will 
advance by successive incarnations in the scale of being, till they reach the 
life of the gods. 7 This last suggestion is in sympathy with the tendency of 
the Physics to break down the gap separating the different kinds of exist- 
ences. The process is continuous downward as well as upward, for the 
soul passes through various plant and animal forms. 8 

In its wanderings outside of this life, the spirit seems to have had a part 
in ordering affairs upon the earth. 9 

1 Perhaps we should say in an atmosphere more exclusively religious, for Pytha- 
goras' thought has also its important religious elements. 

2 Cf. Diels, Sitz., 1898, pp. 403 ff. 

3 Ammonius, De Inter p., 249, 1, asserts this deity to be the Apollo of the Orphics. 

4 Fr. 115. s Fr. 118; 119; 120; 121; 124. 
6 Fr. 128 and 130. 7 Fr. 146; cf. Aet, i, 7, 28. 

8 D. L., viii, 77; Emp., Fr. 117; Hipp., Ref., i, 3 (Vors., 31). Plato's Phaedrus 
248 C, contains points in common with this account. Whether he received them from 
Empedocles or from Orphic tradition in some other form, is uncertain. 

9 Hipp., loc. cit. 



94 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF EMPEDOCLES 

The spirit of the Purifications is strongly ethical throughout, although 
emphasis is laid upon ceremonial purification. The poet's temper is, 
indeed, so distinctly ethical that ideas with this color are introduced in the 
Physics where we should least expect it. 1 One of the most striking passages 
of the Purifications, Fragment 135, asserts the law of justice to be universal 
and spread throughout the heavens. The thought is a remarkable one for 
this period. 

There are obvious points of contact between the doctrines thus outlined 
and the Physics. The four elements are enumerated in familiar phrase- 
ology when the soul's wanderings are described. 2 The golden age suggests 
the time when Strife had not gained so great ascendency as now; men 
worshiped Aphrodite alone. 3 Strife under his familiar name NetKo? is 
responsible for the poet's fall from the realm of the gods. The description 
of the divine spirit in part duplicates the phraseology used of the Sphaeros 
and of Love. 4 Finally, we may note the breaking down of the chasm 
between man and the lower orders of existence, a teaching that is funda- 
mental in both. 

On the whole the coincidences are quite as numerous and important as 
the discrepancies, but cannot lead us to forget the great differences of 
temper and purpose in the two works. 

1 The very names Love and Strife strikingly exemplify this. Strife is always 
baneful in his operation, though all individual existences are conditioned upon his 
activity. 

2 Fr. 115. 

3 Fr. 128. 

4 Cf. Fr. 133 and 134, with 29 and 17, 21. 






XTbe TRnivctsitv of Gbtcaoo 

FOUNDED BY JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER 



ON THE INTERPRETATION OF 
EMPEDOCLES 



A DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS 

AND LITERATURE IN CANDIDACY FOR' THE DEGREE 

OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 

(department of greek) 



BY 

CLARA ELIZABETH MILLERD 



CHICAGO 

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRBSS 

1908 



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